Opinion

My thoughts on a particular topic. May or may not be helpful to others

Working Smarter, not Harder

This is a post I've been meaning to write for eight and a half years. Inspired by this tweet from Ceora, I'm finally doing it.

I have a question for parents in tech, especially moms.

How has having children impacted your career?

I wanna hear the good, the bad and the ugly. Tell me whatever you’re comfortable sharing 😛

— ceora🌸🌺 (@ceeoreo_) May 15, 2024

The most immediate impact having a baby had on my career is I needed to work much smarter not harder. Babies (and children) take up all that so-called free time, and and almost all of your not-free-time, that you used to have.

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Who’s “Allowed” To Review Code?

Guess what? A conversation I was having on Twitter got me excited enough to blog again. Perhaps reading Twitter isn't such a depressing waste of time after all.

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What Can Conferences Do To Attract More Women Speakers?

Trisha presenting at JavaOne

Now I've been speaking at (mostly Java) conferences for a while (six years now), I get asked to present at a lot of conferences. Obviously all these conferences are mostly interested in my terribly educational talks, but it's also because I'm a technical woman and there aren't very many technical women speaking at conferences.

In my experience, conferences want to do the right thing - they want a diverse line up of speakers, they want to attract diverse attendees. Often this is not as easy as it may seem, and frequently conferences are Twitter-shamed for not having enough women speakers. When it gets to this point (and often before), conferences frequently ask me for advice on speakers they could invite, and how to attract more women.

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What Can Men Do

Trisha and Dan North presenting

So, I wrote a long email to the London Java Community in answer to an excellent question: "What can men do to support Women in Technology?".

It's a bit of a brain dump, by no means comprehensive, and is in answer to a specific question in a specific context, but I've been asked to make the information public so it can be useful in a broader context. So here it is.

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Java at 20

I was asked three simple questions about my thoughts on Java turning 20, and ended up writing a guest post for Voxxed. No wonder I can’t seem to find the time to write these days.

Blind CFPs – a Postscript

Since publishing yesterday’s post, I’ve had a lot of great comments, so I thought I’d write yet another post to answer them. Firstly, let me state that I don’t think blind CFPs are a complete waste of time – for example, I know that there are circles in which speakers will refuse to submit if … Read more

Are Blind CFPs Really The Answer?

Off the back of yesterday’s post, I received a number of comments and questions around blind CFPs (Call For Papers – usually to get into a conference you submit to a CFP) for conferences. I often hear it said that a blind CFP will fix, or at least improve, the diversity imbalance at conferences. I … Read more

Developers want to be heard

I wrote a piece for the Java Advent Blog, about how developers aren’t just communing with the computer, they also need to feel listened to by real human beings. Read it here