Hurray!
I’m pleased to announce the launch of WITs Who Lunch’ very own Meetup group! This is an exciting milestone in our journey, as it allows us to streamline group management and enhance accessibility for our members. With automatic notifications and calendar events, staying updated and connected will be a breeze. Moreover, our reach will expand, hopefully making it possible for us to connect with even more awesome WITs.
I want to thank all the awesome women who have contributed to our events so far!
To sign up for our meetup group, scroll down to How can I join? in this article.
If you want to learn more about this group, continue to read ❤
Who are we?
Ok, so here are some stats!
Since May we have hosted three meetups, and the next one is planned in October.
- May: Lunch – Get to know each other!
- June: Evening Seminar – Imposter Syndrome
- August: Evening Seminar – Power Imbalance
Safe to say, we do not only lunch!
We are currently 70 members in our closed LinkedIn group. Let me know if you want to be part of this group. The group is for sharing tips, events, insights, opinions, etc. in a closed and safe environment.
Every month we decide together when we meet, or vote on our LinkedIn group, on what the next topic should be. Topics that we are looking into are How to master LinkedIn, Failure Feast and Executive Precence.
Below you can see the wordcloud from the first survey that was sent out before we met, asking for expectations of our attendees.
Who can join?
- You identify as a woman
- You are working in tech
- You are close enough to Oslo to join a evening seminar, lunch or breakfast once a month
- You are looking for other awesome techies that you can have great discussions with, learn from and motivate!
How can you join?
Now this is easy! Just create a free membership on Meetup if you fo not have one already and join our group “WITs Who Lunch” here: https://www.meetup.com/wits-who-lunch/
If you want to join our closed group on LinkedIn to contribute to discussions and share content, contact me on LinkedIn. You can find my LinkedIn profile HERE.
How can you contribute?
Sponsor
Moving this concept from a “let’s just meet” to an organization gains some benefits on sponsor opportunities. We therefore welcome sponsors who would like to contribute. We don’t have many costs, but would be grateful for help with:
- Meetup membership
- Coffee at events
- Snacks at event
If you are working for a company that could sponsor us please contact me through my LinkedIn profile HERE.
Come share your knowledge with us
Are you a woman that has already made it? Maybe you are a leader or an acknowledged technical expert within your field?
We would love you invite you to share your knowledge with us! If you want to contribute or know someone who might want to contact me through my LinkedIn profile HERE.
Spread the word!
If you are not able to join yourself but know other women you think might want to join, please share this blog post with them.
Why am I doing this?
After starting out in the workforce not that long ago I was a bit disappointed. There are so many amazing initiatives out there. And I am sure we have come a long way! Still, I think we can go a bit further.
I am also lucky enough to be on the organizing Data Saturday Oslo and Microsoft Data Platform User Group Norway. Here I see that there are more male speakers and attendees than female. Why is that?
- Anyone who works closely with me knows that I always nag about speaking opportunities and meetups. Still, I don’t see the changes I want happening as fast as I want them to. Is it because I am not reaching broad enough? Hopefully, this is a way to reach more of you and inspire you to join the data community.
- I get a lot of my technical input from social media as LinkedIn and Twitter. This is also where I often discover events, meetups and opportunities to present and meet other techies. So what if I did not follow the “right people” on these social media? Would I not get all these opportunities then? Let’s, therefore, connect so we can give each other tips on tech updates and events to attend!
- I see that there are more men attending than women at meetups and conferences. I wonder if that might be because we are missing someone to attend with. I rarely see multiple women attending together. I, therefore, hope this group will connect us so we can attend together!
- Also, I see that men in general are great at letting each other know that they are performing well. They are so good at saying “You are doing a great job, Buddy”. Loud. At the coffee station. Or in the comments on social media. Let’s build a group where we can do more of this! I think we as Norwegian women have something to learn from our male colleagues here. Let’s try and be a bit louder in general, and also when we cheer each other on.
- Let’s be each other’s Kitchen cabinet! I got this advice from a WIT lunch at PASS in 2022, and I love it. “Kitchen cabinet” refers to any group of trusted friends and associates, particularly in reference to a president’s or presidential candidate’s closest unofficial advisers (Wikipedia). I am hoping this could be an arena to build kitchen cabinets of trusted advisors who can give advice, help and support when needed. Hopefully, it will help you keep on going, and gain confidence and strength when needed.
- And, I want to give a shout-out to Deborah Melkin and her blog A Woman in SQL 2023 where she digs into the numbers and basically says We need to be doing more. Reading that blog post was the last nudge I needed to – just do this! Thank you!
Marthe Moengen 