Archive for March, 2009
Girls in Tech Boston Launch
Posted by Anya in othersidenotes on March 26th, 2009
Big thanks to everyone who attended this week’s Girls in Tech launch in Boston! We had fantastic turn out and a lot of really great conversations, so we’re really excite about kicking off future initiatives.
We hope you check us out and join the Boston chapter, which you can do by joining our facebook group or by e-mailing me at anya (at) othersidegroup.com.
We also hope everyone will let us know their thoughts on the event, and what we can do for future events that would help either with networking or with professional development. Please leave comments here or on the facebook page with your thoughts.
Check out the fun in the below video, and we hope everyone will join us for our next event!
Ada Lovelace Day and Girls in Tech
Posted by Anya in othersidenotes on March 24th, 2009
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day for celebrating women leaders in the field of technology, as well as support women who are interested in the field and encourage young women who are studying to enter the industry.
In honor of Ada Lovelace day, we are all asked to do our part by honoring women who are leaders and role models in the technology sector.
There are many women accomplishing great things in technology today. In the Boston area specifically, several of the leading women in technology were recently honored at the Mass High Tech Women to Watch event. Anyone looking for proof that women can do great things in tech need look no further.
But just in case a handful of top performers isn’t enough to convince you, we have found almost 200 women in technology in Boston who are coming together tonight to share their experiences, help others and offer advice. These women are driven, successful, bright and excited to bring their expertise to the tech field. And we know there are more than just these 200!
We hope everyone can join us for Girls in Tech tonight to kick off the new Boston chapter and celebrate women in technology, and I hope everyone can find a moment today to honor the women in technology they admire.
social media marketing spend
Posted by Anya in othersidenotes on March 23rd, 2009
An interesting report released today by Aberdeen and reported in eMarketer shows that 63% of companies polled said they’d be increasing social media marketing spend in 2009.
While this may seem like a boon to marketers in this space, the numbers reveal that social media use is not going to increase as much as originally anticipated, and that measurement remains one of the major barriers to more widespread adoption.In fact, as a write-up on the report from Mashable points out, a combined 59% of companies found it difficult or very difficult to measure the results of social media marketing.
One factor I think this article and report does not address is that fact that budgets for social media marketing can take on a very different form than traditional marketing or PR. The major investment needed for a successful social media program is time, and this often means hiring someone to handle the process or bringing in a firm to run the program.
The increase in budgets for advertising and investment in tools then is not as accurate a measurement, considering that many may not consider the salaries of marketing personnel as part of overall social media spend. I think in truth we may see an even greater investment than this report recognizes, it will simply take on a different form and will pull from the time investment in traditional programs.
