A little while back, the plucky Canadian magazine for young women and trans youth Shameless ran a feature on yours truly for the Shameless Women section of their blog. I’m hella flattered and humbled to have been covered and allowed a space to speak of the Montreal Girl Geek Dinners Group as well as some of my personal perspectives.

If you’re interested, here’s the link to the post for you to check out.

Semantics aside, what I appreciated was seeing so many folks in the audience who were interested in hearing our thoughts, sharing their own and asking questions. It struck me that not enough outreach has been done with my franco-girlo-geeko community here in Montreal and I’m looking into ways to change this (including ramping up my French classes).

I left the session and had an inspiring chat with one of the volunteers at the event who came up to me and said that he thinks that what I’m doing with the Montreal Girl Geeks is awesome. It left me tearing up because after some of the knocks I have taken in my life as the underdog, the goofy geek with glasses -  his shared story of not feeling like he fit in made me feel that I had found my people at this event.

I was thrilled to see an event as the Festival de Geek as it featured such a diversity of information, booths and interests. A heartfelt thanks goes out to the organizers, volunteers and exhibitors and sponsors for bringing the community together.

Oh and to the whole question of “Where the @#$% are the Girl Geeks?” – I came out of pre-internet society, but I still found a way to find like-minded folks to be inspired by – even living in small town New Brunswick. I joined groups, I created groups, I had pen pals who wrote zines (yes, I’m old) and traded cassette and video tapes with them. Life wasn’t as easy as it is now kids. Chances are that if you’re a pagan, Buffy fan over the age of 50 who prefers Star Wars to Star Trek, there’s a group out there for you to be a part of. Connect with folks- online and offline and chances are you’ll find someone who’s just as interested in your passions as you are and from this, a community will grow.

Where the girls are. MTL Girl Geek Dinner. Photo by Simon Law

I’m part of a panel discussion on this topic at the Montreal Geek Festival this weekend and I can’t really guarantee I have any answers to this question.

I know they’re out there and I’m stoked when I meet them.

I think it’s essential to engage in this kind of discussion. I do appreicate the mention provided in this video that rather than create games specifically by or for women, gender eventually becomes a non-issue. I think it will take some time to result in this kind of situation, but I’m encouraged by the steps that many have taken to encourage women to get involved in the industry as more than booth babes.

I had a great time last year checking out some of the sessions and found it to be a super way to meet new folks into podcasting, new media, technology, photography and more. It’s pretty much a great microcosm of folks who are all passionate about a variety of subjects and love to share this with other members in the community.

You can check out the details for Podcamp 2009 via this link and get into the spirit with this video that the organizing committee put together.

Give Podcamp a chance…. Hope to see you there.

Give PodCamp A Chance (Full) from Laurent Maisonnave on Vimeo.

Walk the Talk Show: Titans of Tech Forum from Alex King & Mito Media on Vimeo.

The ever-fab Gwen Bell recently was on the Titans of Tech Forum as part of Elephant Journal’s “Walk the Talk Show”. This engaging clip demonstrates the power of bringing 2 communities together to work for good and positivity. It also features an interesting bit of commentary by Jeffrey Kalmikoff , artner / chief creative officer at Threadless speaking to what his company is doing to become more eco-friendly, Micah Baldwin, serial startup-er and founder of Lijit and investor/intrepreneur Brad Feld also loaned their voices expressing how they see the tech community and eco communities being able to collaborate.

Mention of passion came up during this talk as was the need for inclusiveness and encouragement. This talk wayyy inspired me. Hope you enjoy it as well.

Check out their video. They giggle lots…

I’m so proud of you gals! Be sure to film your adventure for all of us to share and next year- I want to see you both presenting!!!

Trolls and all…I still love you honey.

I know I’ve been a late bloomer when it comes to confidence, but partially because I’m not so comfortable in the spotlight. I’ve always used my quick wit and snappy comebacks to save me in social situations where I felt awkward and much of my decision to start the Montreal Girl Geek Dinners group was to force myself to become more social as well as give back to the community.

I won’t bore you with the psycho-social reasons why I was so socially inept. Maybe I was more comfortable chilling in the womb, alone with the amniotic fluid rather than gurgling with the other babies in their cribs. Hard to say.

Fast-forward to now and although I get a little wonky in new situations, I feel much more grounded and comfortable in my skin. These certainly are better days .

Today I almost fell off of my chair when I saw that I was mentioned on a list of ‘Underground Web Celebs Made In Quebec” by NVI, a local web development and digital marketing company. Believe me, I often felt that the same (although well-deserving) people have been mentioned in the context of “Top Web Stars”/ “Social Media SuperHeros” and so on.

Not to take away from these folks who do kick ass work, but it feels awesome when you’re a not expecting to be recognized for your efforts. I’m honored to be named with people on the list who I think are doing amazing things in the MTL tech space such as: Sean Power, Katheline Jean-Pierre, and Heri Rakotomalala among others.

Well it only seems fitting to ‘pay it forward’ and mention some of the people who inspire me, make me laugh, cause me to think and inhabit this Quebec digital microcosm along with me. This list is by no means exhaustive but just a sampling of those folks who rock my world whether by Tweet, by blogpost or by being either personally or digitally connected to me

Aleece Germano – Web consultant, Project Manager, eCommerce specialist, musician and philanthropist, Aleece is cultured, wayyyyy smart and gave one of the most professional talks ever given in the history of MTL Girl Geek Dinners. She is nice to the nth degree and involved in many organizations and events such as hosting an annual clothing swap, promoting events at Montreal’s coworking space Station C and launching a a legal campaign to help Mile End dépanneur owner Tammey Lau.

Jackie Ng – Web Marketing / Social Media Consultant at Jacoutofthebox. Jackie was so quick to lend a hand when she heard about the Montreal Girl Geek Dinner group and although we’ve yet to meet, her tweets inspire and educate me as she’s always sharing links that are well selected and relevant which demonstrates to me that she ‘gets it’.

Peter Bailey- Consultant with Flow Ventures, Peter is one of the most polite and friendly people I’ve ever met in my life and certainly provides the best career advice I’ve even been privy to. A strong supporter of local tech events, Peter always has a smile on his face and an awesome attitude towards life.

Tamu Townsend-Tamu seems to know every single person on this planet and when I mention her name, they always seem to get the hugest smile on their face as they speak so positively of her from either working with her, buying comics from her or meeting her at various Montreal events. Tamu’s dedication to raising awareness for bone marrow & stem cell donor registration inspires me to no end. She’s also one of the coolest sci-fi, animation fans and comic book girl geeks I’ve ever met.

Rommil Santiago- User Experience and Web Design Expert. Rommil possesses a wealth of knowledge about the web and was someone I did an interview with a million years ago for a ‘design a thon’ that he threw. He was one of the first people I knew of in Montreal to host an event with the primary goal to give back.

Martine Pagé- Screenwriter, reporter and overall wordguru, Martine is one of the first bloggers I followed back in back in the ‘early days’ and can be credited with being part of the inspiration for me starting the Montreal Girl Geek Dinners group. She’s a strong advocate for women on the web and in technology, creative thinking and has the best hairstyle/haircolor this side of Mile-End.

Shout out to my old CloudRaker peeps like: Aran Rasmussen, Antoine Girard, Stephanie Troeth, Stefan Dukaczewski, Stephane Caron, Yanick Proulx, Anile Prakash and Twist Image folks like: JF Fortier and Matt Fogel. These are smart, smart people that I’ve worked with. If we ever started a web design shop, this town would fall to its feet.

I should really write a list like this more often. It feels awesome to share such positivity and realizing that I could go on and on is really a good sign

toothpastefordinner.com

Stop with the lists already.

PS- I hate it when I make lists too. I promise not to do the ’25 Things about me’ meme. PROMISE!