Choosing just one woman to spotlight was a challenge – there are many women in technology who have inspired me, but after pouring over histories of Admiral Grace Hopper, Betty Holberton and Ada Lovelace herself, I found myself drawn to one of the early women technologists whose blog I followed, Claire Giordano.

From her about page: Claire Giordano most recently served as the Director of Product Management and User Experience at A9.com, an Amazon.com subsidiary, managing an online advertising service. Prior to Amazon, she worked with Sun Microsystems for 16 years, most recently as the Group Marketing Manager for OpenSolaris, where she was responsible for all outbound and community marketing efforts. Before marketing OpenSolaris, she directed the engineering effort to open source the Solaris operating system. Ms. Giordano has a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Math/Computer Science from Brown University.

I hope you’ll take some time to read through the many posts celebrating women in technology today, but if nothing else, take some time soon to encourage a young woman to explore the vibrant history of women in technology.

I’m taking the holiday off to recharge, relax and eat tasty food, but I wanted to leave you with some good articles to dive into when you feel the need to escape:

Terry Heaton explains why survival isn’t a strategy and asks “What if the old model is gone for good and it doesn’t come back?” We’ve helped a few of our clients answer that question this year, but I’m not sure enough businesses have made the switch, yet.

Dale Dougherty at the O’Reilly Radar votes for Bill Gates as Person of the Year and gives some compelling reasons for his vote.

Enjoy, be safe and merry.

She’s lined up some generous sponsors to match up to $10,000 of whatever she raises. I know everyone’s funds are tight at this time of the year, but your $2.00 is genuinely money well spent.

Can you help? If you can’t spare the funds, Laura has a list of 10 free ways to help here.

Five years ago, the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia inspired her to find a way to help, and the very first Menu for Hope was born. The campaign has since become a yearly affair, raising funds to support worthy causes worldwide. In 2007, Menu for Hope raised nearly $100K to help the UN World Food Program feed the hungry. Each December, food bloggers from all over the world join the campaign by offering a delectable array of food-related prizes for the Menu for Hope raffle.

Anyone – and that means you too – can buy raffle tickets to bid on these prizes. For every $10 donated, you earn one virtual raffle ticket to bid on a prize of your choice. At the end of the two-week campaign, the raffle tickets are drawn and the results announced on Chez Pim.

This year, my clients at Personal Chef to Go are joining in the fun!

One lucky winner will receive their tasty Family Favorites menu, sure to please all but the most finicky of eaters. Each week their chefs create a delicious, four entree menu complete with side dishes to compliment the main course. From tender and moist grilled chicken to savory seafood pastas, it is sure to be a family favorite any night of the week! Each weekly menu is delivered to your door and because it is always fresh and never frozen, it is ready to eat in minutes. Prize package includes two servings of each meal (eight dinners in all).

How to donate and enter to win:

1. Go to First Giving , the site that manages this campaign, and make your donation. For every $10 donation, you are eligible to win one raffle prize.
2. If you’re interested in winning the delicious meal package we’re giving away, when you are prompted to enter a “personal message” enter code — the codes associated with this prize. If you are eligible for more than one prize — for example, if you gave $50 — you could apply two tickets to one prize and three to another. Simply write 2xUE28 + 3xUE28, or whichever combination of prizes you’re hoping for.
3. Not the prize you wanted? Check out the master list of prizes to see what else is being offered.
4. Finally, check the box that follows which says that you are “happy for the page owner to see my email address” — very necessary so we can contact you if you won!
5. The winners of each raffle prize will be announced in early January. The last day to give is December 24.

Every Tuesday I can be found at the NTEN Watercooler dispensing helpful advice on printing, WordPress, blogging, twitter and general communications issues , but this week , I’ll be there from 2:30 – 4:00 pm providing free assistance to anyone who wants to upgrade to the latest release.

Not an NTEN member ? That’s ok – office hours are now open to the general public. I have to say, though, that you’re missing out on working with some awesome people who are all working to make the world a better place .

Sixty years ago, the drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) set about their task of enumerating the rights all humans were entitled to as citizens of the world. Led by the visionary Eleanor Roosevelt, they drew upon a host of sources – from philosophers to revolutionaries to religious leaders and from every part of the world. They also drew upon a document that had already been in existence for almost thirty years – the Constitution of the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted as part of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles which ended World War I.

Much of my work with Active Grey Matter revolves around article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which affirms that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family”, as well as article 23, which affirms the right to work, as well as to “equal pay for equal work” and “just and favorable remuneration.”

The right to work and access to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of all is sorely needed for people with chronic or disabling conditions, many of whom fall into poverty as a result of limited employment options. People with chronic or disabling conditions face the largest unemployment percentage of all minority groups, and declining economic conditions have reduced or eliminated workforce supports to facilitate their return to work.

I hope you’ll join with us in working to change that in 2009, because every human has rights worth fighting for.

They’re looking for big, audacious ideas to back in the following categories:

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

The deadline for initial entries is October 20th, 2008, so get moving!

via the always awesome Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped

If you want to be able to pitch in and help as needed, please consider joining us there!

ColorTree Inc. of VA is a leader in the custom envelope industry. For over 20 years our commitment to deliver outstanding service and quality to our customers keeps us a step ahead. Our investment in training and technology insures that our interns enjoy a meaningful work environment that is engaging, rewarding and fun.

Intern Activities:

• Organizing work flow and supporting the transition to a Prinergy Workflow System
• Providing support to account executives using Synchrono and other tools
• Proofing tasks; supporting the integration of Canon C1 Proofer
• Trapping and color issues
• Plating
• Monitoring performance data
• Special projects such as developing media for in-house skills training programs and other business initiatives

Requirements:

• Attention to detail in a production environment
• Ability to work quickly and accurately
• Excellent communication skills
• Preference given to those with a relevant internship in a fast-paced environment
• Be available to start by mid-August.
• 8:00AM to 5:00PM work schedule preferred

To apply, contact Rick Carr, Director of Human Resources or fax your resume and cover letter to the Colortree Human Resources Department at 804-545-9873.

The findings identified some key behavioral patterns in participants:

Rather than analyzing the content of these newsgroups (hard to do, as they’re huge), Smith and his team looked at structures. They did a great deal of network mapping, graphing the posts and responses, and seeing the structures that emerge. At least three types have emerged:

- Answer people – these people almost never post new threads, but answer the queries of a large number of unconnected people. In network terms, they’ve got high out-degree and low in-degree. These folks are utterly essential in the functioning of technical newsgroups, as they’re the folks that newbies end up getting support from

- Reply magnets – some people have a gift (or a technique) for posting in a way that gets responses. Reply magnets are the opposite of answer people – they post infrequently and everyone answers. Smith sees roughly 0.5% of these people in newsgroups, but their posts get 30% of the responses from roughly 30% of all users. Basically, these folks are specialists in setting the agenda, which has interesting implications for political discussions in newsgroups, as these folks are capable of nominating agenda topics with much more success that the average user.

- Discussion people both post and answer a lot, and have long, sustained connections with lots of people. They’re the classic discussion group user, but they’re less common that we tend to assume.

This echos what I’m seeing in the community behavioral analysis I’ve been performing; while there is some movement between behavior types, it’s typically incident based. Once the incident that prompted the change in behavior ends, so does the change in behavior.

Oh and the title? Well, as you might have guessed, I fall into the answer type, so feel free to ask away in comments!