AWC Past Programs

Thinking about joing AWC, but want to find out more of what AWC does or did you miss that last AWC program, but wanted to find out what happened and how it turned out. Well, here is your chance! Below are descriptions of some of the past programs put on by AWC. Each summary was written by a member of the Ann Arbor Chapter of AWC.

Mar. 30, 2008: Book Club

We had a good time discussing "Stumbling on Happiness" by Daniel Gilbert for the Book Club this last Sun. at Starbuck's.

Most agreed the book was different than originally thought (scientific vs. self-help) but agreed that we learned something from the examples, were able to pull comparisons from our own lives, and how we approach life in general. Attendees were Aydan Golaszewski, Eileen Golaszewski, Susan Gross, Audrey Neuvirth, Luke Neuvirth, Matthew Neuvirth, and Colleen Purcell.

Susan suggested another book (she will look it up and send out the info) which is 12 chapters, so 1 chapter could be discussed per week. We will keep you posted.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 17, 2008: Third Thurs. Lunch

We had a great lunch!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 17, 2008: Third Thurs. Lunch

We talked about wireless, homeland security, etc. Sounds like Livingston County is on the ball, Candy!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Oct. 06, 2007: Mentoring Lunch

Saturday was the Women in Computing and Information Technology mentoring lunch at WCC. There were approximately 90 people there, with close to 60 being students.

One of the AWC Scholarship recipients from last year, Elizabeth Blankenship was one of the attendees, and I was able to recognize her achievement as well as talk a bit about AWC.

The speaker was Jennifer Marsman, a Developer Evangelist from Microsoft. She spoke about her career path and how she became a Computer Engineer at Microsoft.

The AWC Scholarship BootCamp was well attended. 30+ students came to it. We discussed the AWC Scholarship in depth. We also gave away 2 books on scholarships.

I'd like to extend a thank you to all of the AWC Members that gave of their time to come to this event.

- Susan Gross

Sept. 26, 2007: Dinner Meeting
Series

Dean Martha Pollack from the University of Michigan (U-M) School of Information gave a speech on “Assistive Technology for People with Cognitive Impairment”.

A professor of Computer Science and Engineering, Pollack was the Chair of the U-M Computer Science Department before her appointment as Dean. Pollack has conducted Artificial Intelligence research on automated plan generation, temporal reasoning, adaptive interfaces and natural-language processing. Her primary research is in the design and exploration of assistive technology for people with cognitive impairment, a topic about which she testified before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Aging.

Pollack started her speech with an upside-down pyramid shape of the ratio of young people to old from the 1950s. Then she projected it out every 10 years from that. Our population is definitely growing older, and there is a huge desire by the elderly to remain in their homes - but not forget their medicine, leave the coffee pot on, eat, keep hydrated, urinate, and not lose their way to/from the bus stop.

The "pyramid" is getting flat. There will be 40% more elderly in the future - with the ratio of not enough young people to "take care of" the old.

Pollack explained her research with the logistics of what order/how often a person will use a coffee pot (among other examples) in order to project how they will act in the future.

For people using the bus, and getting lost, then a wrist gadget could be used to get them back on track. The AWC was priviledged to have such an intelligent, vibrant woman as Dr. Pollack speak to us!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Sept. 20, 2007: Third Thursday
Networking Lunch

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Sept. 20, 2007: Third Thursday
Networking Lunch

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Sept. 20, 2007: Third Thursday
Networking Lunch

We ate and networked!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Mar. 14, 2007: Dinner Meeting - Unlock Your Potential

The dinner last night at Four Points Sheraton in Ann Arbor had President Diane Pawlak giving an introduction before the meal, and Publicity Chair Kim Kachadoorian introducing the speaker. The 27 AWC attendees enjoyed the speech by Jane Raitt of Unlock Your Potential.

Jane Raitt worked for Chrysler back when Lee Iacocca first laid off a huge number of engineers (“the bloodbath”). She was involved in their outplacement. Jane fought long and hard for this for these former Chrysler workers, convincing management that they were entitled to such services. Jane was written about in The Wall Street Journal.

Jane moved on to create her own outplacement agency “Unlock Your Potential” www.UnlockYourPotential.com

What is an elevator pitch? It is a pitch that, if you only had enough time to speak to someone in an elevator, you could describe yourself in a one-paragraph speech. An elevator pitch needs to include: 1. Who you are (years of experience, education, your field) 2. What you do (tasks that you have successfully completed during your career) 3. What makes you different (“The value I bring to this prospective company I want to work for is…”) 4. What are you looking for (“I am currently seeking a Senior Level ____ position”)

Although websites like www.Monster.com or www.CareerBuilder.com seem like a good place to post your resume, only 3% of people who post actually get jobs. The best use of these sites are for looking at the job descriptions of jobs you are interested in, and using them for your key words in your resume. www.Dice.com is better because it is a niche for technical specialists. (I like www.Indeed.com myself – which does the search for you, and sends you e-mails based on Key Words, as well as which area of the country you are willing to work in). Be selective of whom you send your resume to – it will be seen as more valuable.

You have a better chance finding a job using www.jobster.com or www.linkedin.com where you can network through people who know you. She just placed a person in his dream job out-of-state in New York. The best way to find a job is through networking. Join a group, like the AWC, and get to know others in and out of your field. Understand what you passion is, and go for it!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Feb. 20, 2007: Evolution Of A High-Tech Company

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Feb. 15, 2007: Third Thursday Lunch

- Kimberly Kachadoorian

Feb. 06, 2007: An Evening At The Menlo Software Factory - A Guided Tour Of An Agile Software Development Practice

- Kim Kachadoorian

Feb. 02, 2007: First Friday Lunch

We had a great lunch at Antonios in Farmington Hills. Time ran short and we decided to have the next get together in this area in the evening so that we have more time to chat.

- Diane Pawlak

Jan. 25, 2007: Book Club

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Nov. 28, 2006: Mentoring Dinner

We had a good turn out for the Mentoring Dinner at Washtenaw Community College (WCC) on Tues. I counted 77 people in attendance.

Rosemary Wilson, WCC’s Dean of Business and Computer Technologies, gave an introduction. Diane Durance, President of IT Zone, spoke about The IT Zone. Our own Susan Gross, VP for Students, spoke about AWC’s scholarship and AWC activities. Gautam Reddy, Academic Programs Manager of Microsoft, spoke on a contest they have having – see www.imaginecup.com

Other tables around the room were: Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance, Pariveda Solutions, the Michigan Dept. of Information Technology, Plante & Moran, Schumaker & Co., and Microsoft.

Keynote Speaker Teri Takai has both her undergrad and graduate degrees from U of M. She started out as a COBOL programmer. She has worked for Ford Motor Co., Ford Motor Credit Co., EDS, and Federal Mogul before becoming Director of Information Technology for the State of Michigan.

Teri is in charge of 1700 State employees, 58,000 desktops, 1300 telecommunication stations, and 19 State Agencies. Her goal is to make broadband more available and making websites for all counties. www.Michigan.gov was ranked the #1 website for State government by Digital Government magazine.

When Governor Jennifer Granholm came into office, there was a $4 million deficit from the prior administration. Teri’s Dept. was able to save the State $100 million while delivering more services and becoming more efficient.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Nov. 04, 2006: Dreamweaver Class CANCELLED

The Dreamweaver class was cancelled, due to not enough registered students. We may offer it again at a future date.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Sept. 09, 2006: C#/ASP.Net Class

Instructor Aydin Akcasu said www.somee.com gives 105MB of space and can use an Access dBase for generating your own website - just click "Sign Up" button at bottom. You don't have to register the domain name since the domain is somee.com - so your website, for example, would be your_name.somee.com - it gives 2 lines of advertising on the top, and does not allow MP3 (music) or "Adult" sites.

The .Net framework takes 11MB to install. "Sharp Developer" is an IDE (Internet Development Enterprise). Web Matrix fits on a floppy.

Microsoft has Visual 2005 Express Edition and Web Designer Express Edition, both of which are "lite" versions of their full-blown products. Elipse for Java community.

Intellicent has methods which "pop up" as a drop-down list - so you don't have to look up the method.

Make your web page work on Netscape because it has to work on all browsers.

There's VB.Net (Visual Basic), C#.Net - a new language, ADO.Net (Microsoft version of handling databases), HTML (must learn a lot of strings and the data). .html or .htm files is a text file, so it does not change. ASP.net, PHP and JSP (Java Script Programming) use databases, so they are dynamic.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Aug. 29, 2006: Job Fair Committee Meeting

Meeting at Panera in Plymouth Discussed getting sponsors and promoting the event. Assigned tasks. Kokila will take charge of publicity. Nancy will send out a mailing to possible sponsors (Diane will send to Nancy). Meeta will handle the listservs and the break-out sessions. Kathleen will get prices on printing the brochures and flyers. Everyone will try to get the name of 5 sponsors and contact them. Next meeting is 9/7 at Panera at 8PM.

- Diane Pawlak

Apr. 22, 2006: AWC Job Fair

The AWC Job Fair was a big success. Job seekers met with representatives from Blue Care Network of Michigan, Cisco Systems, Inc., Compuware, Covansys, Deloitte & Touche, L.L.P., Fiserv, HTC Global, UMHS Medical Center Information Technology, R.L. Polk & Company, Thomson Medstat and Visual Automation. Other event sponsors included Plant & Moran, PLLC, A.J. Boggs & Company, DaimlerChrysler, Kay Harris CPA, Menlo Innovations and Stout Systems.

The employers in attendance gave us pretty high marks, along with some suggestions for the next event. One employer expected more students to attend, as did we. The beautiful weather may have been a factor. We had 210 people register, and 106 actually attend. Of the 106 in attendance, about half took the time to fill out the feedback form and gave us high marks. Of course, there is always room for improvement and we will be working on that while preparing for the next job fair, which should be in September.

We would like to thank Judy Lawson from the University of Michigan, School of Information, for being a gracious host and allowing us to hold the Job Fair in West Hall. We would also like to thank Jill Jordan, IW Associates and Dr. Melanie Taylor, The Center for Executive Development, for volunteering their time and resources to conduct our Career Development Workshops. Jill's presentation, "Ready, Set, Interview" was popular with attendees and very well received, helping them to prepare for the interview process. Dr. Taylor spoke about Leadership Development and was a big hit, offering insights that are helpful in our professional and personal lives.

Along with helping AWC members and people who find themselves out of work or in a career transition, we also helped our scholarship recipients. Proceeds from the Job Fair benefit our scholarship fund. Last year AWC awarded over $6,000 to deserving students studying Information Technology or a related curriculum.

- Diane Pawlak

Apr. 08, 2006: Job Fair Planning Committee Meeting

Meeting held at U of M School of Education. Meeting notes posted on the AWC Job Fair Committee group site. Preparation is going well. This is crunch week with a lot of details that need to be sewn up by Friday. Another meeting will be scheduled for Saturday, 4/15/06.

- Diane Pawlak

Mar. 18, 2006: Job Fair Planning Committee Meeting

All attended this meeting. See Yahoo group for meeting notes.

- Diane Pawlak

Mar. 11, 2006: Accent Reduction Seminar

The Accent Reduction Seminar was an excellent resource to foreign nationals seeking to ease communication with their English speaking collegues.

The barrier of mispronunciations from heavy accents is detrimental to the process of getting hired. Judy Raven skillfully taught the attendees how to improve their pronunciation of difficult words and syllables.

This event was very successful and should be offered again in the near future.

- Diane Pawlak

Mar. 08, 2006: IDEO Video

The IDEO video at Menlo Innovations was quite interesting. We started the exercise with selecting 5 people from a list that we would want to have a “team” on developing a new product, in this case, a new shopping cart. Then we watched the IDEO video.

Dave Kelly, an engineer from Stanford, started his company IDEO with a new business model. They create 90 new products a year. The 5 people on their team included a Linguist, Harvard MBA, a Biology major, an Engineer, and a Psychologist. Kelly said “hire people who *don’t* listen to the boss.” He didn’t want to have “yes men” working for him.

Kelly considered people who use, make and repair a product to be the “real” experts. He recommended the book “The Inmates are Running the Asylum” book. Kelly likes people who are experts in the process.

Menlo Innovations uses volunteers every Mon., Wed., and Fri. from 9:00am-12noon to work on non-profit projects that are pro bono. Richard Sheridan, the owner of Menlo Innovations, recommends “The Taste of Success”. He was featured on the cover of a business magazine for being a 6-figure executive who was laid off and then succeeded in making a $3 million dollar company.

It was a small turn out, but Martha Stokely, Jean Lieverman, Helene Gidley, Keally Opelt and Audrey Neuvirth enjoyed the refreshments and talking about our work experiences.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Mar. 05, 2006: Book Club

We had an enjoyable afternoon sipping coffee at Starbucks and discussing the book "Why Men Earn More." We agreed that women tend to be more cautious with their careers - vs. risk-taking - and that would affect wages.

Cindy Wells brought up that it was good that the book used solid statistics. Audrey Neuvirth was surprised about the "genetic celebrity" section, where good looks count.

Laurel Marotta had the experience of following her husband around different states, and Cathy Lu said U of M tries to supply jobs for the accomodating spouse, which a lot of places do not do.

All in all, it was a good discussion about how jobs improve when women get into "men's" careers, and there's a reason why it appears men get paid more, when they do not.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Feb. 25, 2006: Job Fair Planning Meeting - Details

Discussed project plan for job fair at UMich on 4/22/06. See minutes posted on Job Fair Yahoo group and AWC-AA Board Yahoo group.

- Diane Pawlak

Feb. 06, 2006: Job Luck Seminar - Details

Stacy Sturgill, IT Manager from Borders Books, spoke on Developing Your Resume. Is your resume still current? Still relevant? What are your strengths? First impressions are important – you only have 10 seconds to help the reader to decide to keep reading! Review your resume as if you were:

· Technical · Non-technical · Human Resources · Recruiter

Ask for feedback at an interview. First two pages of a resume are essential, since some databases cut them off after two pages. What did you accomplish? What were your results? Give your key strengths, key technologies, and key projects. Give a specific job title.

For an electronic version of your resume:

Remove bullets, bold, and tabs because everything will be flush left Use asterisk (*) instead of a bullet Date, Title, and what accomplished – and don’t make this the same as what you put in your e-mail

John Guerrlich from the audience recommended www.RileyGuide.com for a Word .doc on what to look for in your resume.

Relevant experience vs. professional experience. Fit “key words” into your resume – words that you would search if you were the Hiring Manager. Use resources like www.Monster.com, www.CareerBuilder.com, www.HotJobs.com, www.Dice.com, and www.WITI.com, www.DiversityInc.com, and http://www.mcwt.org/1.php .

Look at job description of job you want. Post your resume on that website. See what other companies call your position. It’s important to have a “culture fit” because wording will match company website’s buzzwords. Look for IT Industry chat rooms. Back-up your resume in the interview with an example of what you have done. Use words like enthusiast, spearheaded, self-starter and passionate. What are the core values of that company? For example, “Easier Execution.”

For employment gaps, just give years, not months. Things that Stacy looks for are: candidates who were charter member of a professional group, learned a new technology on their own, what size budget of manage – core skills you had to develop.

What if company was bought? Put new company’s name, but put the old company’s name in parenthesis, or subsidiary of x, or FKA (Formerly Known As). An Independent Contractor has more “drive” than a consultant who works for someone else.

What experience do you have that is relevant to today’s job market? Describe what your software did, if unclear. What is key about that project – client needs met before developing it? Stay current: if you’re out of work, but taking a class/teaching a class – that is staying current. Technical Agencies are good ways to get “in” to a company.

Scan your resume – what is your first impression?

Stacy also gave a hand-out of the 100 most popular keywords: Sales, Recruiter, Administrative Assistant, Accountant, Receptionist, CPA, Customer service, Accounting, Java, Mortgage, Manager, Executive Assistant, Human Resources, Pharmacist, Accounts Payable, Insurance, Payroll, Staff Accountant, Physical Therapist, Outside Sales, SAP, Business Analyst, Collections, Audit, Engineer, Controller, Financial Analyst, Project Manager, Marketing, C#, .net, Project Manager, J2EE, Administrative, Oracle, Construction, Warehouse, Inside Sales, Business Analyst, Paralegal, RN, Financial Analyst, Data Entry, Nurse, Peoplesoft, Restaurant Manager, Loan Officer, Staffing, Retail, Legal secretary, Call Center, Bookkeeper, Auditor, Autocad, Tax, Registered Nurse, Buyer, C, Spanish, Japanese, Underwriter, Account Executive, Technical Writer, Medical, Cnc, Finance, Staff accountant, Civil engineer, Telemarketing, Accounts receivable, Senior accountant, Manufacturing, SQL, Unix, Architect, HVAC, Help Desk, Oracle DBA, Clerical, Purchasing, Bilingual, Accounts Payable, Technical writer, Pharmaceutical, Loan processor, Occupational therapist, Qa, Pharmaceutical sales, Real Estate, Maintenance, and Entry Level. (If you counted, there’s less than 100 here, because I didn’t include case-sensitive duplicates).

We had 14 people attend, which was a great turn-out! Thank you to Briana Motley, AWC Member, for helping facilitate the session, too. At the end, resumes were critiqued individually.

- Diane Pawlak

Jan. 28, 2006: Job Fair Planning Meeting - Details

Here's what we discussed at the meeting. We are working on the major items already, but can use some help with all of them. Please let us know if you can help.

Proposed dates are 4/8, 4/15 or 4/22. We're shooting for 4/8.

Proposed time - 10AM - 4PM.

Proposed site - University of Michigan. We are looking into other sites as well, but cost will be a factor. If anyone knows of possible locations please let us know. We'll need to know how much it would cost and what they would offer for the price.

Proposed fee to participating companies - we are researching what is the standard fee for a company to participate in a job fair. If anyone has information regarding fees please let us know. We'd like to be under what the standard price is, make it more enticing to participate. Proceeds to go to the AWC scholarship endowment.

Newsletter to be handed out at the job fair - we're going to print a newsletter with a few articles about finding a job, resume writing, or related topics. There will be some things "on the lighter side", possibly a job hunting horoscope, some jokes, among other things. We will also be selling ad space. Participating companies will have the ad included in their fee to participate in the job fair. Other companies can buy an ad as well. More details will follow once the date and location is confirmed.

Ads - we will exchange ad space for services, such as printing, decorations, etc. Let us know if you know of someone who is willing to do this for us.

We want to have a minimum of two 30 minute break-out sessions, maximum of four. Sessions could include resume tips, interview tips, networking, etc.

Vendors - we would like to have a table where people can buy coffee, tea and light munchies, with the proceeds going to the AWC scholarship endowment.

We want to have an AWC recruiting table for membership. We'll need a banner for the table (Darlene Morin may have one). We discussed having a membership post card to fill out. Need to check with a printer for prices. Thanks for your help!

- Diane Pawlak

Nov. 19, 2005: Job Luck Job Fair - Details

Even though it was the day of the "Big Game" between U of M and Ohio State, we had a great event. However small the turnout, the qualifications of the participants was remarkable. We signed up a new member, received a donation for AWC and arranged two promising interviews.

- Diane Pawlak

Oct. 12, 2005: Gala Planning Mtg.

No information available. Just moving it out of the current list.

- Diane Pawlak

Sept. 29, 2005: Fall Student Networking Dinner

The First AWC/WISE Student Networking Dinner was a success!

26 Students attended from UM, WCC, and EMU (even a person from OCC and one from CMU attended).

We had 10 Mentors there to network with the Students as well. Microsoft brought 4 representatives, including some recent graduates who went to work there.

Presentations were given by the event's sponsor, Microsoft, AWC, WISE, SWE, gEECS, and WCC.

- students-vp@awc-aa.org

Sept. 19, 2005: Job Luck Club - Details

Sept. 19, 2005: The Job Luck Club was treated to an informative presentation about networking and resume writing by Jeff Antaya and Jill Jordon, co-founders of IntervieWize in Southfield. They perform an invaluable service to anyone in the midst of a difficult job search – consider their services a small investment into your future.

Jeff Antaya is an interview coach with over 20 years experience in sales, marketing, and financial management. Jill Jordan is an interview coach with more than 20 years experience in sales, marketing, executive development and management consulting.

• Sometimes you have to give to get, give someone else a referral, help someone else get a job.
• The meeting can be accidental or planned
• Identify companies you might want to work for – your top 20 list

• Friends
• Associations/professional groups - Chamber of Commerce, Churches, Rotary, non-profit groups, recruiters
• Fellow college alumni
• College professors
• Coworkers and previous coworkers

• Neighbors and kids activities
• Doctor, dentist or accountants appointment
• Reporters - call them about an article they wrote that may relate to your job search
• Daily newspaper
• Business periodicals – Crains

• Call or write
• Explain what you are trying to do
• Ask for a few minutes to seek their advice - I could really use your help. Can I ask you for help? Do you know of an available position?
• Listen
• Ask for other contacts

• Find a reason to compliment the people you meet
• Be prepared to ask questions, getting people to talk about themselves is a great way to bond
• Be a good listener, don’t interrupt
• Ask clarifying questions, if appropriate
• Be careful not to monopolize someone’s time
• Make eye contact and shake hands firmly
• Ask about their business and challenges that they face
• Don’t bring your resume out at a networking event – have business cards with your name, phone number and email address
• Introduce yourself
• Be interesting

• Dress as if it’s a job interview
• Get there early – before it opens
• If you get there after it opens, start at the back and work your way forward – it will be a while before the first job seekers get back there
• Be streamlined – no purse, briefcase, etc – just your business cards
• Don’t drink alcohol

• Don’t juggle food, beverages, purse, briefcase – it gets in the way when shaking hands
• Check with your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary for how to participate
• Sit with the new people, not associates at networking events
• Arrive first to socialize before an event or leave last
• Volunteer – as a greeter or check-in person, you can get noticed

• Identify you, include current contact info
• Tell what type of position you are interested in securing
• Takes full advantage of the “prime real estate” on the resume
• Highlights your strengths and distinguishes you
• Accentuates your key accomplishments (quantitative is good)
• Gives employment history
• Is easy to read
• Is visually appealing
• Uses action verbs
• No long than two pages (one for a recent college grad)
• Don’t use quirky email addresses like goodtime@aol.com

• Have an attention getting opener
• Describes the position you are interested in
• Highlights your strengths
• Describes a company’s goals, which you can impact and how you will make a difference for them
• Gives a reason to talk with you
• Asks for the interview
• Says you will follow up
• Is easy to read (short paragraphs and bullets)
• Is always personally addressed, unless to a blind ad

• Ignore them
• Say you are flexible and give a range
• Give salary history
• Give salary requirements

• Follow up in a timely manner (3-5 days) after sending your resume
• Don’t be afraid to ask for advice on the position or other openings
• When leaving a voicemail, leave your phone number and speak loudly
• Always say thank you

- Diane Pawlak

Sept. 06, 2005: Open House

Well over 100 people attended the Open House at the IT Zone on Tues., 9/6/2005. We had a good representation of AWC members and others who recognized us.

There were tables for a dozen different Ann Arbor companies and professional organizations. There was also a huge table of hors d’oeuvres, as well as pop, wine and water.

Each table’s representative gave a 2-minute speech on their organization. Among those represented were Automation Alley, Ann Arbor Computer Society, www.Glimawala.org, Network Downtown, New Media Friday, and others.

Diane Durance, Director of the IT Zone says she plans on holding an Open House every year (this was the 2nd annual) and will invite the AWC next year.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Aug. 27, 2005: Gala Meeting

Attendees: Audrey Neuvirth, Barbara Eckstein, Cynthia Hoxey, Darlene Morin, Diane Pawlak, Jennifer Burn, and Susan Schmidt-Creech.

1. There are 30 Top Women nominations submitted. We need their biographies and job responsibilities, which was omitted from the form. 2. Madhuri Deshpande is going to contact the outside judges (non-AWC) at 5pm today. 3. Coca-Cola backed out as a Sponsor. 4. We have 3 sponsors, all of which are “big” ones, including a $6500 sponsor. 5. Barbara will contact Lynne Conway with phone number and e-mails since 4 questions were missed on her form.

6. Tues. night is the deadline, and Wed. is when the information will be given to the judges 7. Kathy Blieske is Public Relations Coordinator who will write the News Release for who the Top Women winners are. She will also write a News Release about the scholarship winners. 8. Audrey has contacted florist Garden Fantasy for the flowers. Susan said we should get a contract with them, to make sure they don’t back out. Susan has had problems with photographers, etc., in the past who have backed-out at the last minute. Audrey assured Susan that the business is run by family friends, who have already provided the flowers for the Annual Meeting. Discussion ensued that we should have contract anyways, since we are getting contracts for every vendor. Audrey and Darlene will meet at 6pm on Mon., Aug. 8, at Garden Fantasy, 10501 Haggerty Rd. (1 mile North of I-94, on East side of street), Belleville 48111. 9. Jennifer has contacted Ron Suarez for Music. Ron is an IT person who is a D.J. Ron has extensive equipment which Audrey has heard during Ron’s Network Downtown and New Media Fri. events. Although this is different than the live string music we’ve had in the past, Ron is very good and will provide excellent service. Jennifer will get a contract signed from Ron. 10. Discussion about whether Ron Suarez should be emcee as well, since he is an excellent speaker? No, let’s keep him to one role: music. Potential emcees are last year’s Matt Rousch, or Brian Hamilton.

11. Cynthia will contact Top Woman Laurie Burns for her missing information. 12. How to attract more Top Women to apply in future? Diane suggested buying a mailing list and mail it in February to H.R. or I.T. Dept.’s. The labels are provided, and Audrey was able to vouch with how useful they are. 13. Darlene has unreliable e-mail and she can get a free account through Yahoo which will not block perceived “SPAM” like her current AOL account does. Darlene has not received many e-mails due to them being blocked by AOL. 14. We have no Director of Sponsors – Audrey will send out e-mail to membership, asking for help. Madhuri and Diane are “helpers” but do not want to be the Director. Jennifer has stepped down from helping get sponsors, due to current workload. 15. Practice with photographer on Fri. before or 1.5 hours beforehand, so a “walk-through” can be done with the emcee and grip-and-grin photos. Confirm with photographer.

16. Susan is helping Darlene with a spreadsheet of start and end dates, where the holes are in current document. Darlene wants to make sure everything is documented so next year’s Gala VP will have all of this information since she is stepping down after this year. 17. Jennifer’s Top Women candidates have been reallocated to Cynthia, Diane, and Darlene, who will contact them instead. 18. Susan is on vacation until Fri. but will e-mail awc-gala. 19. Women-owned businesses can submit electronically 20. Darlene has Word .doc, but needs to be saved as .pdf so changes cannot be made to it. Liz Marshall to put this on web.

21. Jennifer knows of a website that will put files on a link, and has a free server. She will send out this information to awc-gala. 22. Susan, Liz, and Melody Alfather will meet at the Menlo Institute (Fourth St. and Huron, next to Ann Arbor Food Co-op) for a volunteer Project Management. 23. Jennifer said we need to get AWC flyers to the Center for Education of Women (on Liberty St., above IT Zone).

- Audrey Neuvirth

Aug. 22, 2005: Job Luck Club - Details

We had a nice turnout at the August Job Luck Club meeting. Tina Watson, a hiring manager with ADP-Automatic Data Processing, spoke about the perspective of a hiring manager, networking, and interview preparation.

Highlights of her discussion focused on the importance of certifications, planning your job search, networking, interview tips, recruiters, and how to use and not use the internet in your job search.

The group picked up some valuable information to use in their job search, offering positive feedback about the meeting.

- Diane Pawlak

Aug. 18, 2005: Networking Happy Hour

Half a dozen people came to Ann Arbor Brewing Company for the Networking Hour. I wasn't there, but H. Jean Leiverman, VP of Programs, says a good time was had by all.

- Audrey Neuvirth

June 09, 2005: Website Visibility

Patty Bradley is a Website Administrator at the School of Public Health at University of Michigian and a freelance webmaster. She had a project of making U of M’s website more visible to the general public, so she learned a lot about this topic.

97% of people using a Search Engine on the web do not click past the first 3 pages. Increasing your Search Engine ranking has become a booming business – there are 10 million companies!

How do Search Engines work? Search Engines “crawl” the web, looking for websites that are linked to other websites. The content on your website is important. Words are more important than images, because web crawlers cannot “find” images, but only text. You should have strong content that is text-based and explains the goals of your website.

Each Search Engine (Google, Yahoo, MSN (Microsoft), AOL (America On Line), AskJeeves) has their own algorithm to do so.

Register your site with on-line directories. Open Directory Project is an Open Source volunteer group with real people who look over every submission. Submit your site to Search engines yourself – sometimes it’s still free! Contact the Webmaster, not the Sales Dept.

Patty had a wonderful hand-out of her whole speech. Contact her at PattyB@PattyB.net if you want it.

- Audrey Neuvirth

May 12, 2005: Annual Dinner

Described as "better than last year!" the AWC Annual Dinner had a lot of fun networking, including Coffee Klatch and 6 Degrees of AWC.

We started with a half hour for Registration and Cocktails (Open Bar). Then Lisa Luczek gave her President's Welcome. VP of Programs Audrey Neuvirth promoted upcoming events, including the Intro to XML class on Sat., May 21, and Website Visibility on Thurs., June 9. The 2005 Calendar (on yellow paper) was held up for all to see.

Vice President Barbara Eckstein introduced current AWC Board Members and future Board Members. We will be having elections for our June "year" and would like to have at least 2 people running for each position, in order to create a little competition. But by all means - feel free to volunteer in other capacities! You are always needed.

This year's President's Award went to Liz Marshall, due to all of her hard work done at the website. Unfortunately, Liz had a death in the family, but she will receive her award once she gets back from Pennsylvania.

Audrey had attendees raise their right hand and promise to meet for the coffee, sometime within the next 6 months, the Coffee Klatch name she pulled out of a coffee cup. This is to promote networking within AWC, even when you don't happen to sit next to a person at an event.

We then had either London Broil or Roast Vegetable Spanakopita dinner (Weber's Inn did a great job!) and people were encouraged to fill out slips of paper on the 6 Degrees of AWC table - where we are only 6 people away from, say, a carpenter in India. We had door prizes from Sakina Zerrell of The Charles Reinhart Co., Savannah's Total Hair Care, Oakville Greenhouse, and Garden Fantasy. The winners walked away with dinner for 6, free haircuts, a flat of flowers, or the table's fresh flower bouquet. Hope to see you next year!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Mar. 19, 2005: Open Source Database

There are different Relational Databases. PHP is like "C" lite. There's Enterprise Manager with Apache. We used MySQL in class.

VAR_CHAR is a fixed length String. auto_increment has the table keep track of itself. So the column number goes up automatically. The key is unique for every row. An index uses a faster search (vs. a full text search). !

You can create a table, alter a table, or drop a table (delete a table and all of its contents). You can Select all columns. You can limit 0,30 with columns 0-30 for pagination.

Browse is for data. Back-up is Export button, then GO. Control-A will select All, Control-C will Copy. You can select order - for example: Last_name, First_name.

phpMyAdmin SQL ver 2.6.1 - p13 on http://www.phpmyadmin.net It can be used with an Oracle box. A schema is a structure of data in a database. We used Programs > Internet > PuTTY.

Instructor Richard Herrell of Tut Systems provided us with a hand-out, which is too detailed to go into here. Richard really knew his stuff and helped us all individually with the hands-on project. Great class!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Mar. 10, 2005: Disaster Recovery

Russ Taddiken, Business Development Manager for Compellent Technologies, and Mike Dickmeyer, VP of Storage Technology Group for NovaStar Solutions.com spoke (instead of Bridgette Kellogg) on new technology for Disaster Recovery.

It was an excellent history lesson of just how far we’ve come in Storage and recovering data! It was a very worthwhile presentation.

Russ drew a lot of diagrams, which are hard to describe here, but he knew his stuff and complex storage systems are giving way to easy ones. What a relief for those in Administrator roles.

Russ Taddiken can be reached at rtakkiden@compellent.com and Mike Dickmeyer can be reached at md@novastar.net (http://www.NovaStarSolutions.com) in Livonia, MI.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Feb. 24, 2005: Practical Passage

Char Brooks was an attorney working 70-hour weeks when her husband passed away 12 years ago. Her children were just 2- and 6-years-old. She decided to cut back her hours, but knew she couldn’t do justice to stay in her field doing part-time work, so she formed her own business, The First Step.

Char lives in Okemas, MI (other side of Lansing) but comes into Ann Arbor a lot. She teaches two community education classes dealing with “designing your life” and weight loss. The two courses are 2 weeks and 8- or 12-weeks respectively, held during the week. They range in price from $50-$150.

Char pulled out an exercise called the Wheel of Life. It had 8 areas that we rated our satisfaction with: Physical Environment (home), Career/Business, Family and Friends (Community), Finances, Romance/Intimacy, Health/Self-care, Social/Fun, and Personal/Spiritual Development.

We then used 3 x 5 cards to focus on 3 areas of the Wheel. Brainstorming how we could do something to increase our satisfaction in an area, we then focused on 3 points. One would “call” to us as especially needing work, and we worked specifically on that.

The session was very helpful. Highlights we discovered were: 1. It’s scary to go into the unknown again. 2. If you keep acting the say way, you’ll keep getting the same results. 3. Create the life of your dreams, not the life you’re just “settling” for.

It was an awesome program, and I heartily recommend Char Brooks for her $75/hour fee. She can be reached at 517-332-0755 or Char@the-first-step.com

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 31, 2005: CSAM/WISE Dinner

Approximately 80 people attended. Former AWC Board Member Rebecca Yoo's old boss, from www.smartGirl.org, was the moderator. It was a lively discussion of overcoming the decline of college graduates in the Computer Sciences, as well as overcoming obstacles in the Workplace.

Microsoft, CogniLearn, and CruiseSavings.com sponsored the dinner with lasagna, alfredo noodles, salad, beverages and cheesecake from The Olive Garden. They also gave away door prizes of keyboards and mice.

From AWC, we had mentors Susan Gross, Darlene Morin, Kathy (of CSAM too), Julie Janice (Border's), Cynthia and myself.

WISE is looking for mentors. GEECS is teaching middle school students Visual Programming in Brighton. We need to show that programming is fun! Dr. Chesney is looking to set up a mentoring group also.

Julie Hodge, from Alias Company, said we need women in the Gaming Industry, like Seemafax for Graphics, and Electronic Arts. Simms game was discussed.

It was a lively group and I hope you can make the next dinner, which will be in Jan. 2006.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 15, 2005: Intro To HTML And XHTML

Patty Bradley did a tremendous job sharing her knowledge about HTML and XHTML. This class was about Code, not Design or even Cascading Style Sheets (CSS).

This hands-on class had us creating a mini-web page that we updated with each new learning example.

We learned the history of HTML, what elements, attributes and values are, how to create the Head and Body sections, hyperlinks, adding images, and more.

Patty also provided us with a small stapled packet of all of the information she provided. We brought 3.5" floppy disks so we were able to bring our code home. An excellent class!

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 15, 2005: Intro To HTML And XHTML

Patty Bradley did an excellent job teaching us the code behind the scenes of HTML and XHTML.

We created our own web pages, and tested what we just learned each step of the way.

We learned about the history of web coding, elements, attributes, values, declarations, Text styles, parent elemtns and inheritance, web page content, comments, nesting, hyperlinks, images, and much more.

Patty has agreed to teach a CCS (Cascading Style Sheet) class in Nov. Watch AWC postings for more information.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Dec. 11, 2004: UofM Women's Basketball Game

It was an exciting game against Indiana - and U of M won 68-48!

It was also fun to watch every fan toss a paper airplane at an X-Box prize in the middle of the court, trying to win it. Along with 2 kids competing to dress into a U-M basketball uniform (the little boy got his head through the sleeve), as well as a musical chairs with several children.

The U of M Marching Band provided lively music, and the U of M Cheerleaders did elaborate "pyramids" on the main floor, during time-outs.

I hope we'll be able to do this next year! Great game!

- Audrey Neuvirth

July 14, 2004: Women: Claim Your Ambitions! Stop Deferring Your Dreams!

Manya Arond-Hill is a Harvard graduate who became a Massage Therapist who became a physician who became a Life Coach with her own company, Manya Arond-Thomas and Company, to help women unleash their own potential.

4 Main points: - Our minds what to be engaged - There are hidden barriers that keep women back - Critical Success Factors of Success - Recognize your own Distinctness

Ambition. It’s laiden with emotion. Ambition implies egoism, self-aggrandizement, being selfish, manipulating others. Women are anti-recognition. Men see Ambition in a woman as Negative. Ambitious women are often perceived by men as being bossy, overbearing, not “liked” in some way. Ambition is considered to be inappropriate. Women are expected to give up “Air Time” or recognition. Yet recognition is what would keep us going.

Identify your unique skills. Release old emotions that Hold you back. Articulate your Purpose. Access a group of women who want you to succeed. Integrate it into your daily life. Even Firestone, Ford, and Edison had such a Group. You can use spiritual energy to Focus.

There’s BHAG: Big Hairy Audacious Goals. Brainstorm with each other. Make a commitment to Stretch. Set deadlines for reaching certain goals. Manya’s company offers several programs for this.

Manya had us do 4 exercises as part of this presentation. She will be speaking again to us, and I’m looking forward to it. She is a very lively and entertaining speaker.

- Audrey Neuvirth

June 10, 2004: Top 5 Marketing Mistakes Everyone Makes

Sandra Xenakis said that structures need to be set up to support Marketing. For example, during the .com bubble, there was a lot of big purchasing of software with the recent releases of Microsoft Windows. There was money to spend, the Internet was just starting out, and we were leading up to Y2K. Companies were lazy with Sales and Marketing, where the people were highly paid, but not doing enough. After 2000, when the bottom fell out, there was more competition in the Market. Consumers became more sophisticated. Projects would end, yet there would still be staff to support. These companies should have been Marketing all along.

#1 Mistake: No Mission and/or Vision Your Mission is your reason for being in business. It’s your Motivation. Write your Mission Statement down and look at it daily. It should resonate with your beliefs. Every time there’s a major change, review your Mission Statement and see if it’s still correct. For example, if you have a new interest, or there’s dissension among the Board, or a business partner dies. Your Vision is the future. Where are you headed? If you were going on a trip, would you just jump in your car – or would you look at a map? You must have a destination in mind for 5-10 years out. Write a Vision story as if it has already happened: I’m making $100,000 a year salary, I’m living in a condo in Ann Arbor, I have sales of $3 million a year for my company. In the ’90s, intellectual property was the new technology. Now it’s the potential for profits. Who will buy your company? What is the market?

#2 Mistake: Inconsistent Marketing Companies treat their Marketing as feast or famine. They think there’s no time to market when they’re really busy fulfilling a job, but when the job is over – what is going to take its place? Do marketing consistently – 2-3 hours per week. Even looking for a job is like this. Use different marketing methods. What are you in business for? Become the expert – go on radio talk shows and TV shows. Write a newsletter if you feel uncomfortable speaking. Network with your target market. Create a brochure. Be visible in your community. Put an Ad in the newspaper. Get a story published about your company. You don’t want to hear your customers say “We’ve never heard of you.” People like to do business with people they know.

#3 Mistake: Focusing on the Wrong Market IT was using relationship marketing – wining and dining, when really they should be product marketing: how can your product help me in my business, and how much does it cost? After the product is bought, then customer service is important. It’s different with Consulting, where the credibility of Longevity is a factor. Sandra knew a Sales Rep who left a company to become an independent consultant for the company’s product. But because he didn’t have the company’s backing, no one wanted to do business with him. What he should have done is leave the company, but come back as an independent contractor. Figure out your ideal client profile: Where do they live? How much money do they make? If looking for a job, ask yourself: what kind of company do you want to work for. Focus on the company you want to work for. Analyze your profitability of current clients. Are you getting enough money back from the return on your amount of time? Then focus on those who do. Where do your referrals come from? Go all the way back to the beginning. One woman with a Massage Therapy business wanted to stop working with this Chiropractic clinic. Then she figured out that 60% of her business came from their referrals. She didn’t know this until they did the analysis.

#4 Mistake: Lack of Commitment in Time and Resources Marketing is treated as overhead. Businesses don’t see how it relates to the bottom line. It’s important to talk about your product and service. Match it with who needs it most. Determine your target market. Examine your objectives. What are you trying to accomplish in a certain amount of time. For example, 1 year from now, how many customers do you want to have? Your Business Plan should have a Marketing Plan within it. Demonstrate cashflow. Research. Why are people buying your product? What benefit is the customer looking for? There are a lot of statistics available on the web – use it. Who is your customer and how are you going to get them? Once you have the sale, how to get them to keep the relationship? It’s 3-4x as hard to get new customers vs. retaining old ones. Use scientific data vs. guesswork. Go to the Census Bureau – how many people have your customer’s demographic? Existing customers are your best Sales Reps. Marketing should be 6% of your total revenue. Start-up companies, or those going into a new territory, or competitive businesses should use 10% of total revenue. Set up a support team, to make yourself accountable, if you’re looking for a new job or new business. Hire a marketing coach, or a career coach. Decide together and commit together. Listen to your clients for suggestions.

Mistake #5: Little or No Monitoring of Results Where are your customers coming from? What works? What doesn’t work? Commit to 6 months of advertising before reviewing results. Set up a referral program of your existing clients. Set up a system of “Where did you hear of us?” Document this. Start small and work your way up. Call your customers. Keep in touch with your customers. Set up a database. Ask them: “Are you getting what you need?” Put together a focus group where, over dinner, you can get feedback. Let other companies know what you did. Put a “tagline” on your business card. Recommended books: The Customer Evangelist (about word of mouth) Achieving Success through Social Capitol by Wayne Baker Gorilla Marketing by Robert Middleton (Marketing on a Shoe String) Websites: www.MarketingProfs.com American Marketing Association

- Audrey Neuvirth

Apr. 22, 2004: Outsourcing From Every Point Of View

We had 30 people turn out for our panel on Outsourcing. On our panel, we had a researcher, a business owner, a manager, and an employee. All dealt with Outsourcing.

Researcher - Dr. M.S. Kirshnan doesn’t like to call it Outsourcing. He prefers to call it the Globalization of IT. Please note that this has been happening for many years already. McDonald’s and Coke are an example. It creates access to new markets and new resources.

Business Owner - Madhuri Deshpande has worked for 20 years in IT. She started out as a programmer, then went into Project Management, then became a Contractors, and for the last 6 years she has been a Business Owner. She consults American companies in outsourcing. She also does Recruiting. There’s a difference between Outsourcing and Offshore.

Manager - Chandana Kathuria joined NSF International in Ann Arbor 1.5 years ago. It’s a $80 million/year co. Her first decision to be made as CIO was whether to outsource or not. They’re a non-profit company that focuses on clean food, water and air. They now have global customers. It has come full circle, because now she has new markets in India and China, where the water has to be certified. The infrastructure is starting to be put in place due to the growth. There’s been rapid expansion in the environmental market, and not just in the U.S. Market.

Employee - Stephanie Miller has been a software engineer for 4 years. With the downturn of the economy, they weren’t allowed to increase headcount, but the amount of work grew. She was getting burnt out and putting in incredible number of hours. Her company decided to use resources in India. Before, Spec’s could be vague because you could always pick up a phone or walk over to someone’s cube. Now it has to wait ‘til the next day if questions. They had to improve their communication process and Life Cycle. Now they do most of the design work, while India does code development. She enjoys her job more now since she gets to interact with the customers more. She’s also involved in the architecture. She doesn’t have to build and maintain code.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 24, 2004: Introduction To Relational Databases With Microsoft Access

Patty Bradley, who wears the hat of AWC webster along with her many other hats led an informative and lively class on the use of Microsoft Access as a tool for building and managing relational databases.

Topics covered:

• Basic introduction to the components of a relational database: tables, queries, forms and reports

The class began by learning how to create tables using the Access GUI, followed by writing queries to for accessing the data entered into the tables. Data types were introduced and discussed.

The strongest reason to use a relational database as opposed to a single table or list is that relationships can be built between tables in a database. Relationships between tables are identified through primary keys and foreign keys. Patty used pertinent examples to illustrate this concept and the class wrote queries on the practice database that was developed that facilitated understanding.

The class came down to, however, primarily learning to manipulate the Access GUI. Access has many features to make working with a database easy, once you get past the obscuration of theory that are inherent in GUI interfaces.

The class learned how to build forms for entering/updating/deleting data (though one item at a time). Patty also covered how to create reports for summaries, charts and labels. The examples that the class worked through were a report of the individuals in the sample database and creating mailing labels for printing.

The class was held at WCC and each student worked through problems on a PC. WCC offers excellent facilities.

- Barbara Eckstein

Jan. 12, 2004: Financial Planning

There are Roadblocks to financial saving: inflation, taxes (tax deferment is good), and procrastination. Pay attention to diversification, having enough cash reserve to cover 3-6 months of expenses, having adequate protection (disability insurance, life insurance, fire insurance). There are Fixed assets that grow at a fixed rate like Bonds and Certificates of Deposit (CD's). There's Equity assets that fluctuate like common stock, mutual funds, and your house. Most decisions are emotion-driven, so it's better to deal with financial matters when you are calm. Six steps:

1. Examine your present financial situation
   • Track your income and expenses
   • Create a cash reserve
   • Plan for emergencies
   • Have adequate protection - disability insurance
     • life insurance
     • home insurance
   • Accumulate wealth
     • buy a house
     • buy business or income property
     • begin your investment portfolio and continually review it
   • Manage income taxes
     • manage federal and state income taxes
   • Plan for retirement
     • adequate retirement income: gov’t benefits, employee benefits, personal savings
     • provide for the cost of medical care
   • Preserve wealth
     • Estate planning

We had a lively conversation after the presentation for question & answer period. Thank you to all for bringing up different concerns of investing, and to Alicia Botti for shedding light on a difficult subject.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Dec. 13, 2003: AWC Holiday Gathering To Support SOS

We had a good turnout for our Holiday party, and collected many gifts for the children of SOS as well.

- Audrey Neuvirth

Nov. 08, 2003: Top Michigan Women In Computing And 25th Anniversary Gala

The First Annual Top Michigan Women in Computing Awards Program was a great time. Guests were greeted at the door at the Pre Gala Reception by various AWC member greeters, and then entered the reception where the Top Women were gathered with friends and family to celebrate. Passed hordeuvres and an open bar worked to open up conversations and create mingling.

We then moved to the dining room where I gave a short 'welcome speech', followed by Heather Newman of the Detroit Free Press who was the MC for the evening. Heather introduced Lisa Luczek who spoke about the scholarship program.

After dinner Heather introduced Teri Takai who spoke about the paths that women take as they move through their careers and how those paths differ from the paths that men take. Women move on their own schedule, but move they do.

The awards program followed Teri Takai remarks. Each woman was called to the stage and handed her award by Teri Takai. I was lucky enough to be the person who handed Teri her award. Photos were taken.

After, a standing ovation, led by the merry band from Comerica Bank, in support of Mary Ann Ellsworth, was given to the women.

All in all, the event was fun and rewarding. The Top Women were gracious, beautiful and deserving.

- Barbara Eckstein

Oct. 01, 2003: AWC / CSAM / WISE - Networking/mentoring Dinner.

Every CSAM/AWC mentoring event is rewarding and fun. There's a beautiful write up with pictures on the CSAM site. Please take the time to check it out : CSAM/AWC October 2003.

Thanks to all who attending. The young women appreciate your mentoring and support.

- Tina Watson

Sept. 18, 2003: Catching The Next Wave Of Technology

This typical NEF event was held in conjunction with the IT Zone and AWC. The CIO Of Michigan, Teri Takai was the featured speaker. She spoke about her areas of responsibility and what the State if focusing on in terms of IT.

After Teri spoke, the microphone was passed around the audience and folks had a chance to pitch themselves or their idea/firm.

We had a healthy AWC contingent at this event and used it as a way to publicize our Gala: Sakina approached the CIO with the news that she had been selected at a Top Woman, Barb & Lisa thanked CompuWare in person for there $5000 support, and Barb AND Audrey made pleas for more Sponsors. Way to go gals!

- Lisa Luczek

Sept. 13, 2003: Photoshop Workshop

Kathy Koehler of Koehler's Quality Software taught the photoshop class. The class covered the basic use of each of the many photoshop tools. Most concepts were passed through the use of hands-on instructional exercises including retouching old and damaged photos, color manipulation from stock photos and building photo montages.

Overall the class was well attended and gave a good introduction to photoshop tools and techniques.

- Barbara

Aug. 23, 2003: AWC Picnic

We had a beautiful day to enjoy Carolyn Russell's boat, tubing (water skiing, but with an inner tube), and swimming on Whitmore Lake.

Petula and Briana brought their babies. We grilled hamburger and hotdogs. Sakina's French cheese was to die for. We met Julie Boardman's husband. Darlene brought homemade brownies. Audrey brought her husband's grown sweet corn, and 2 sons. Patty enjoyed tubing.

Carolyn commented that our turnout is getting better every year, and would love to sponsor next year's AWC picnic in August 2004! Thanks, Carolyn.

Audrey's sons Luke and Matthew were very excited when they caught two minnows!

Carolyn driving her speedboat

One of the boys tubing.

- Audrey Neuvirth

July 24, 2003: Communicating With Skill, The Art Of Negotiations, Resolving Conflicts The Right Way

Communicating With Skill, the Art of Negotiations, Resolving Conflicts the Right Way • Communicating with Skill: Leaders in the business world or aspiring leaders recognize above-average communication skills are critical. To become an effective leader, you must communicate like one, but often, our greatest challenge is finding a way to put our internal perceptions, feelings, motives, etc. into meaning and words. We'll review: o Different types of communication o How to effectively target your audience o Tips for managing conversations, e-mail, written documents, and public speaking, and o The art of listening • The Art of Negotiation: Everyone can benefit from learning the art of negotiation, whether for use in business, community, or personal relationships. As a matter of fact, you already have a head start because negotiation is probably a regular part of your everyday life. You'll learn skillful ways to work through the negotiation process: o Prepare by setting objectives, back-up objectives, and a best alternative o Gather support materials as well as information on your opponent o Make wise choices regarding offers, counteroffers, and concessions, and o Exude confidence by carrying yourself like a pro • Resolving Conflicts the Right Way: Interpersonal conflict is a fact of life. Nobody is going to agree with everyone all of the time. But that doesn't mean conflicts must have a destructive effect on those involved -- there are several "right" ways. Become more effective as you: o Minimize friction before it turns into a disagreement o Approach conflict situations using five styles of fighting, avoiding, withdrawing, compromising, and initiating dialogue o Foster trust to prevent future conflicts

To learn more about HR Advantage or read testimonials from their clients on Cyndi's training style, visit their website: www.hradvan.com. Cyndi Gave, President of HR Advantage, Inc., attended Michigan State University where she also taught public speaking as an undergrad. She has worked in human resources in a variety of industries including staffing, automotive, property management, healthcare, distribution, publishing and robotics. In 1996 Cyndi founded HR Advantage which helps growing companies Hire Smarter and maximize the value of their human assets. HR Advantage has a long list of workshops which range in length from 2.5 to 4 hours, from which we've selected the three interrelated topics listed above.

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July 13, 2003: Book Discussion Group

We had a lively e-mail discussion even before meeting, and an enjoyable 7-person discussion the day of the event.

The book centered on a 4-year study (95-99) done at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. It addressed the lower enrollment and higher attrition of women in the program.

Ch 1 – Talks about how boys are ‘magnetically attracted’ to computers. Discusses gender socialization vs. genetics. Ch 2 – Talks about the middle school years. Boys more likely to take computer apart and learn how it works. Games oriented toward boys. “By middle school and high school, boys are more familiar, experienced and comfortable with computers than most girls.”

Ch 3 – Motivation. Men are more interested in computing itself, while women are more interested in what you can do with it (the social function.) Curriculum orientation tends to favor the male perspective. Ch 4 – Computer Science Culture. Dominant culture based on singular and obsessive interest in computing. ‘Geek culture’. More common among men, and shapes assumptions of who will succeed and who ‘belongs’ in the discipline.

Ch 5 – Confidence and Interest. Women’s confidence and interest tend to erode because of their lesser initial experience. Many told ‘you’re only here because you’re a girl’. Women more likely to drop out because of peer dynamics, computing experience gap, and technology-focused curriculum. Ch 6 – Staying in Computer Science – discusses who most likely to stay. Foreign students and girls with no brothers tend to be more likely to stay.

Ch 7 – Discusses the Summer Institute for teachers at CMU. To prepare teachers to teach C++ and to provide gender-equity instruction. Includes a list of 13 ways to enrich a programming assignment. Also suggests adding a list of goals for software design. Ch 8 – talks about changes instituted at CMU and implications for other universities. Since 95, enrollment of women has risen from 7% to 42%, and retention has become comparable between genders.

- Audrey Neuvirth

June 18, 2003: CyberLaw

Attorney Chris Juillet delivered a fascinating presentation about "CyberLaw" and how it will affect all of us. Participants learned about how laws can affect their interaction with the web, as well as what Web Masters can do to protect their websites.

View Mr. Juillet's PowerPoint slides in Adobe Acrobat Format.

- Patty Bradley

June 04, 2003: How To Buy A Laptop, Printers, Scanners, PC's

Bill Rowland, Sales Manager at Compusa, gave some great tips on how to work with the sales staff when buying a new computer system. He described different options for buying a computer, and went into depth on them.

- Tina Watson

May 17, 2003: Flash Class At WCC

Aydin Akcasu led a fun and informative class on the basics of using Flash MX. Topics covered included drawing tools and basic timeline manipulation including motion tweening.

We began by creating a stop light using the tools within Flash. This application allowed for the use of every tool plus introduced us to the mixer panel, the instance panel and others.

Once the stop light was created we learned how to animate. Animation of the stop light, turning the lights on and off in a timely manner, was accomplished by developing a time line in the main scene. This part of the class introduced keyframes, effects and graphic symbols.

Once again, 5 hours was not enough to cover all of the topics that either Aydin would have liked to or the students would have enjoyed. Overall the class was informative, helpful and nicely organized.

Barbara

- Barbara

May 01, 2003: Ambient Findability - Information Architecture Program By Peter Morville

Peter Morville, President, Semantic Studios presented on the the importance, the structure or and the means for finding information.

Download his presentation. (Power Point)

- Barbara

Mar. 29, 2003: PMI/AWC Three-Day PMP Exam Prep Class

- Tina Watson

Mar. 18, 2003: Web Application Development Using The Rational Process

I didn't attend. I'm just updating 'happenings' list.

- Tina Watson

Mar. 08, 2003: PHP Crash Course

Keith Elder and Michael Kimsal of Tap Internet, a professional e-services firm that focuses on providing web-based technology, were joint instructors for our PHP Crash Course held at WCC on Saturday March 8th. Keith led the class through the basics of PHP while Michael roamed the room helping those who were temporarily stuck.

The pace of the course was fast as there was much to cover in a short time, but the content was sound and Keith is a clear and well organized instructor. Keith gave a brief history on PHP, first written in Perl as a packaged developed to manage content and track users of web sites. After it's successful launch PHP was released as an open source language and has been under development since.

Topics that Keith covered were the basics of variables, conditionals and loops, retrieving and displaying data through POST and GET methods, embedding PHP within HTML documents, the value of functions when used in conjunction with HTML-embedded variable for making pages dynamic and updates and additions to a site (extremely) easy and connecting, writing and getting data from a database and then serving that data to the user of the web site.

The only draw back to the class was that we were limited to only 5 hours, which Keith and Michael generously extended by a half hour in order to present the concepts of database driven dynamic sites.

If you e interested in extending your PHP learning experience Tap Internet (www.tapinternet.com) offers PHP training courses.

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Feb. 06, 2003: Innovation & Strategic Planning In Challenging Times

Walt Disney World VP of IT Strategy and Methods Stephanie Parson was a very dynamic speaker. Our own Petula Brown met her through a nationwide program, Information Technology Senior Management Forum.

Walt Disney World (WDW) is 45 square miles of property with 23 resorts, 4 theme parks, 3 water parks, 6 golf courses and 2 cruise lines. Stephanie supports 53,000 employees and 17,000 contractors. There's 15,000 PC's. There's 10,000 reservations and 96,000 Fast Pass tickets issued per day.

Strategy is Planning. The Business VP's at WDW had very different areas of interest:

• tactical: fix it immediately
• finance: 5-year plan
• building new parks: 10-year plan

Bring in managers, workers and customers for this planning. Manage your relationships with your users. It's not just about deploying technology. You can't just talk servers, firewalls, and networks. Business people's eyes will glaze over.

If IT wasn't fast enough, a standalone tool that was promised to not be used by everyone, becomes popular and then needs to be put on a network - and becomes IT's business. Standards can prevent this from happening. Stephanie gave an example of a business person going to a Trade Show, seeing a new gadget, and wanting to have it at the office. Now the product won't get approved unless it meets criterion of Strategy.

IT insisted that employees follow guidelines. But it was a partnership. There were meetings with the Directors of each Business Group. She's the Legal Technology Partner and the Dean of IT School of Learning for Disney University. She gave an example where an IT woman was in a meeting of WDW merchandisers. The woman knew that a lot of cheerleading conventions are now held at WDW, and why didn't WDW have a doll with a cheerleading outfit? The merchandisers agreed, and 6 months later, the dolls are selling like hotcakes. Now that IT woman is highly respected by the merchandising group.

It's a good idea to drive the business. Before, nobody liked IT because IT was associated with spending money. Programmers were behind a locked door. Stephanie has a military background, and knows of Data Centers that are like that - swipe card access only to a chosen few. But IT needs to be integrated into the whole business system. Business people need to look at IT as partners.

Have contingency plans. She asked who was hit by the SQL Slammer virus over the weekend? WDW had to choose which ONE network they could have up, and they chose ticket sales. Everything else was down!

Stephanie showed a slide which had a tic-tac-toe like grid with Mickey Mouse's hand with either a red, yellow, or green background in each square. It was to show how a strategy was working: bad, fair, or good. There were also a few full-drawn Mickey's, which meant strategies "not started yet". This strategy map is on their internal website. You can drill-down on any of the hands and see what is expected for each area. Before, there were 15,000 measures on a balance score card. Roger consolidated them into 16.

60 people attended, and Stephanie was interviewed by a radio station afterwards. Her e-mail is Stephanie.A.Parson@Disney.com

-

Feb. 03, 2003: Balancing Work/Home/Family

Thank you to all who came to AWC/CEW's presentation on Family/Work Balance with a 4-member panel from Hewlett Packard (hp). The 4 speakers were:

• Lora Scieszka, Finance Director, has been with hp 23 years, travels a lot, married with 2 sons
• Colleen Richardson, Human Resources, originally from Michigan and graduate of U-M 1991, married
• Jan Weaver, Technical Support, has been with hp since 1979, works 2 days/wk. from home in Dexter, the rest in Livonia, married with 2 sons
• Jennifer Carnine, Manager for Connectivity (printer) Hardware, works in Roseville, U-M grad 1994, married

The women said because HP is such a large company, you are able to have many different jobs, but stay with the same company. There are many "virtual teams" where contact is through phone, e-mail, Instant Messaging, and having meetings while using software to follow-along with the presentation on their local PC.

HP has a female CEO.

Jennifer had worked for a Japanese semi-conductor business, and the culture there was very different. The first time she had a one-on-one meeting with her manager at hp, she had never encountered a manager who wanted to work with her on her own goals.

The cultural impact of merging with Compaq was discussed. Apparently the cultures weren't that much different, and there wasn't much overlap either of products. Both companies benefited from the other.

HP has a philanthropical organization, where they set up IT infrastructure as their donation.

They handed out bookmarks to http://www.jobs.hp.com

See you at our next event,

Audrey Neuvirth President

- Audrey Neuvirth

Jan. 12, 2003: Book Discussion: Secrets Of Six-Figure Women

The book discussion on the book Secrets of Six-Figure Women by Barbara Stanney was attended by eleven women, some members, some soon to be members. Talk ranged from personal reasons why one can't make as much money as one wants, the need to address those reasons from both an internal and an external perspective and motivations.

Some of the points covered were

• How management determines who will get a raise
• The importance of not low-balling your salary request when first hired, as that determines to some extent your earning potential
• That many of us have preconceived notions about earning money that keep us from getting what we are really worth.

The value of this meeting, as I see it, was two-fold. I was able to talk about my goals and get feedback from the group on my strengths. The AWC is primarily a networking and support group and this meeting was indeed a great meeting for that.

- Barbara Eckstein

Mar. 14, 2002: PHP Seminar. What Is It? What Can I Do With It?

Our guest speaker was Keith Elder of Tap Internet. Keith is also an instructor at WCC where he teaches PHP and Linux administration courses. Michael Kimsal, director of Tap Internet also came and offered much background and sidebar information.

Keith began with a history of PHP, (released in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf). Michael interjected more information and celebrity gossip where appropriate. Keith then presented basic PHP syntax via several scripts of increasing complexity (Hello World, up to a system for maintaining an entire business). The punchline is that PHP is easy to learn for beginners and powerful enough for an enire business. Keith has made his presentation, including a sample database, available for download. The file is a compressed tar.gz file which you can uncompress with WinZip or on a UNIX command line by typing: tar xvfz present.tar.gz The file includes a README which gives you the important files and directories it creates. The actual presentation is within this compressed file. There is also a setup.sql which you will want to import into your MySQL database to make the "fake company" work when you click on the customers link. If you have questions about the file, please feel free to email Keith Elder He is also the creator of an online tuorial at Zorka.com

- Barbara Eckstein

Feb. 21, 2002: ASP.NET Seminar

Our guest speaker was Steve Heckler from Westlake Internet Training. He discussed how an active server page (ASP) is used, primarily as a means of credit scoring and credit card confirmation. He showed an example of how it worked with XML by a program converting temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit and vice versa. At the end of the seminar four lucky attendees received passes worth over $900 of training at their facilities in Southfield - or Pittsburgh if they wish. The winners were Barbara Eckstein, Jennifer Marcovitch, Tracy Miller, and Luanne Bullington. Congratulations! A streaming video of the presentation is available on the national site.

- Jill Peck

Oct. 25, 2001: Will XML Make E-life Easier?

It was an XML-ent evening! Our guest panel consisted of AWC member Madhuri Deshpande of Soft-Link International, Inc., Josh Holmes of XMLBootcamp and XMLSpyBootcamp and Dr. Ron Suarez of Object Insight, Inc. Madhuri discussed the fundamentals of XML and why businesses use it. It is replacing EDI as a common way to send data electronically from business to business. Josh went into the software aspect of it and showed an example of an XML file and how the data is displayed on the Internet. Ron explained how the Java programming language and XML work together. He also discussed the types of servers used to send XML files.

A lot of memory is required to store XML files because of the use of a beginning and end tag for each field.

Some businesses using XML are the airlines, cruise lines and financial institutions.

- Rebecca Yoo

Aug. 05, 2001: Ms./Mr. IT Cookie Contest & Potluck Barbecue

1st Place - Peanut Butter Surprise by Linda Ridley

2nd Place - Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip by Mary Ramirez

3rd Place - Chunky Pecan Shortbread by Lisa Luczek

- Rebecca Yoo

June 13, 2001: MCSE Certification

Our guest panel consisted of Dennis Sarafa and Marlo Pabst from Management Recruiters in Ann Arbor along with AWC members Linda Ridley and Madhuri Deshpande. Linda told us she set aside time every night and on weekends for several months to prepare for the exams. Dennis mentioned how a group of people he managed in his IT department studied together and encouraged each other.

The cost is very expensive, averaging over $5,200 per employee plus indirect expenses like lost time away from work. Linda's company paid for hers. It was recommended by the panel not to plan to change jobs soon after getting certification, especially if the employer paid for the training.

For some companies certification is preferred, but for others it is required, such as at Madhuri's company. To make it worthwhile, it should be in something you have worked with or are currently working with. Linda had already been working with Oracle databases before she became certified in Oracle.

There are many resources available for getting certification. Books, manuals, and practice exams are available at bookstores, libraries, and web sites. And Washtenaw Community College offers a program called e-scape.

- Jill Peck

May 04, 2001: EDI Workshop

Violet Farley of Internet Operations Center in Southfield was our guest speaker. She spoke of the advantages businesses have using EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). The main advantage is the time it saves. It is used in many different industries. Some of the more popular documents businesses exchange with one another are purchase orders, invoices, and acknowledgments. She pointed out that the health care industry will soon require all claims be transmitted EDI.

We also got to see a sample of what an actual EDI file looks like. The fields are separated with asterisks or other characters. Each company or "trading partner" has a unique ID used to send and receive documents. The data gets sent to a private network (used primarily by large companies such as Ford and Wal-Mart) or a third party VAN (Value Added Network) where it is to go to the trading partners' individual mail slots to be picked up for processing.

We also heard of disadvantages of EDI such as the hardware and translating software costs involved and communication failures at one end of the exchange or the other. Companies can experience delays in payment if invoices are not received. They can also get charged fees if the trading partner is expecting a shipment and doesn't get a notice before the truck arrives.

There has been a lot of controversy about EDI recently. Some say it's here to stay, while others feel XML will replace it.

- Jill Peck

Feb. 01, 2001: Checkfree I-Solutions Corporate Tour

CheckFree is an online biller. Speakers were:

• Lori Harris - Relationship Manager
• Dan Robertson - System Consultant
• Laura Bond - Engagement Director

1. One-to-one paper bill to consumer
2. Vendors web sites include a page to make payments. But this means that consumers must remember multiple website and passwords.
3. Consolidators (like CheckFree) offer a single place to log on and pay bills. But billers became dissatisfied because of the loss of the marketing channel to the consolidator.
4. Billers send summary data to consolidator with a link to their own websites for detail, or provide access to their data via interfaces to the consolidator.
5. The consumer logs into a portal or a bank with CheckFree as a transparent back end.

CheckFree is currently the only player in the consolidator market. They purchased Bluegill (a biller) and Transpoint (their competitor) last year. Spectrum, a consortium of banks, is working on a consolidation product but it is not yet in production. Companies went to CheckFree (Bluegill) when they wanted to move to web based business faster than their IT departments could deliver.

CheckFree is a payment processor (like Intel-inside). They don't plan to enter the e-procurement business since the market is dominated by Commerce-One and Horiba.

USPS is the most aggressive portal. They plan to spend $25 million to market ebilling this year. This is the most expensive market campaign yet for this sort of service.

Banks may offer the service for free because it reduces churn. 45% of consumers who do online billing through their bank won't switch banks because it is too much effort to set up the accounts again.

The product runs on multiple platforms: Solaris, and AIX are the dominant versions. HPUX and Windows NT/Windows 2000 are also supported. Databases used are DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server. Web application servers are Weblogics, Websphere, iPlanet, and IIS. Their legacy is Java and Java Beans.

Their core development team (160 people) is in Waterloo, Ontario. CheckFree headquarters is in Atlanta. Two of the founders live in Ann Arbor and deployment (50 people) is based here. Jobs performed locally include: solutions architects (right after presales), web architects, project management, data extraction. Skills desired include Java, Database/infrastructure, programming background, customer skills, and culture fit. They currently process payments for 1100 companies and do bill content for 87. They can take any print stream (any structured tagged data) and convert it to XML. It can be converted to Adobe for printing purposes. The website can drill down into the bill interactively if the biller contracts for this. When the detail is stored on their site, they keep 6 months online. In order to be 'ebill enabled' a vendor must have a relationship with CheckFree.

They showed a demo with a fictitious company called Peninsula Telecom. In their demo, they could sort on any line of the detail with a mouse click. They had an option to search on any field in the detail. They're adding a 'dispute resolution' box on the detail lines. If the box is checked then a screen for comments appears and an email is sent to the biller. BellSouth and USPS demos were also shown. CheckFree has a real time feed into the back end system at BellSouth.

- Tina Watson

Nov. 01, 2000: Beginning HTML Class

The AWC Beginning HTML Class, held at the Washtenaw Community College on November 11 was a complete success. We had a full class and the attendees were extremely pleased with the 3-hour course. Jennifer Burn, AWC National President, and instructor at the Washtenaw Community College in the Internet Professional Program, taught the group the basics of creating a Web page and HTML coding. The following functions were covered:

• Creating the Home Page using Windows Notepad, coded in raw HTML Understanding the 6 required HTML tags
• Creating tables, lists and organizing the lay-out (including text formatting and background colors)
• Locating and inserting graphics (including animated images)
• Creating hyperlinks and anchors
• Inserting e-mail links

The AWC board members are glad that the HTML Beginning Class aroused such interest. We're looking forward to presenting the HTML Intermediate Class on November 18, 2000. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants as well as Jennifer Burn, who kindly took time out of her busy schedule to introduce the group to HTML.

- Sakina Zerrel

Oct. 01, 2000: Bricks & Mortar

I attended last night's AWC meeting, an excellent panel, great meeting. (Compliments to Petula Brown.) I'd written up a summary for the web team in my office, and thought I'd forward it. There was a panel of 5 speakers representing the people behind the websites at various Ann Arbor based companies, with the topic of Bricks and Mortar (Retail) vs. E-commerce. The speakers shared their experience in e-commerce.

Mary Campbell - Internet Marketing Manager at Borders.com (www.borders.com) Borders views their strength as a loyal customer base. Like many companies, when they first created their website their strategy was competing with other .com companies. (Initially, their retail stores viewed their website as competition.) Over a 6-month period their strategy evolved to be that of brand convergence, since they've found that the web presence tends to draw people into the stores and vice versa. For example, people print a list of books from the website and go to the store to buy them. They'll be adding a kiosk in the stores to allow customers to look up books. She disagreed with the 'vs.' in the title of the seminar. Unlike amazon, their website works to preserve the anonymity of the user. They have two websites: http://www.borders.com/ and Borders Vision, which has a link from their main site. The latter is new and has information about their instore events as well as videos from past events.

Kathi Dvorin - Manager (of website) at Zingermans (www.zingermans.com/zing.storefront) Zingermans went online 9/22/99, and has seen growth at 3 times what they'd expected. Except for holidays they receive about 20 orders/day online. They want their web presence to be comparable to what you experience when you walk into their store - be overwhelmed by it. They have 100 Christmas orders already. They pride themselves on their personal touch, customer service, like hand-written gift cards in every gift. (Zingermans also catered the event.)

Nina Howard - Owner of bellanina day spa & gift boutique (www.bellanina.com/) Nina had a website developed in 12/98. Initially it was a challenge since her main product was massage services. She included her skin care products, and her profits have shifted toward product, not service, as a result of her site. In the first year, traffic increased 640%.

David Heavrin-Brown - Internet Technologies Consultant (www.heavrinbrown.com) Dave's company builds (and manages) websites for various sized customers. His company handles the website for Nina Howard above. He talked about customer service as an emerging web trend that he sees. Red flags for websites include outdated content, misspellings, and flaming ducks (bells and whistles that make it take longer to download a page).

Bridget Fahrland, Associate Creative Director at Fry Multimedia (www.frymulti.com/) Fry is a full service interactive agency based in Ann Arbor, about 250 employees. Her talk focused on 4 points: branding, audience, product, and internal company support. Their clients include:

• 1-800-flowers.com - Their website was developed initially to branch out. They've expanded online to general gardening products, growing their brand online. In 4 years their website grew from a sideline effort to a major revenue source. Side note: You can place an order with them up to 4 years ahead of time. :-)
• Crate & Barrel - Their website matches their store image, and their focus is in not shaking up the brand.
• Eddie Bauer - Their focus was to expand their market channel. They're also using their website to trial new markets. For example, just out is http://www.eddiebauer.com/ebk/. It has a different look and feel than the regular Eddie Bauer website. If this pilot is successful, they'll extend it to their retail stores; for now it's only online.
• Godiva chocolates - Here's where the target audience is different. In their stores (usually located in malls), 75% of their customers are women. On the internet, 75% of their customers are men.
• Coach - Their strategy was to target a 20-something market, younger than their normal customer base. This meant different products (fabrics vs. leather) and different price ranges ($300+ doesn't fit the market).

• The web tends to drive more to retail and vice versa.
• Messages can be tailored but must preserve brand
• The web team must be integrated in the organization, not have separate accountability.
• Sites should be grown gradually. Too many start out trying to compete with Amazon.
• The best sites extend services and functionality.
• The worst sites are clickable catalogs.

- Tina Watson