Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa

We’ve MOVED!

kellyrusk — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:11:10 +0000

Hey everyone!

Thanks to our generous sponsor, Virtual Eye See, Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa has moved to it’s own domain! Please visit and update your RSS/Bookmarks/whatever to www.girlgeekdinnersottawa.com

Thanks, see you on the other side!

Recap: Crowdsourcing Girl Geek Dinner results

kellyrusk — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:54:32 +0000

*I could have sworn I had posted this early! Alas, it’s been sitting in the draft folder, but like they say, better late than never! -Kelly

First off, on behalf of Mel, Veronica and myself, I’d like to say a huge thank you to all the geeky girls who came out on Monday. We were a fantastic crowd and we got a ton of great feedback on how we should proceed. Please feel free to keep suggestions coming via comments on this post–I’m going to recap what we talked about.

Possible Topics

Some topics you indicated you’d be interested in learning more about:

Social media
Semantic Web
Web 2.0 or Web 3.0
Digital marketing
Workshops – setting up a WP blog, registering a domain
Open source
Legal and Copyright issues in an open web
Entrepreneurship
Case studies
Measuring quality of programs
ROI, monitoring
Demo of Beta tools, focus testing
Career development
Managing your personal brand
Using SM tools to collaborate internally
Women issues in the workplace
Networking and meetups (i.e “speed networking”, interactive networking games)

The preferred frequency of events is once per month, but avoiding summer, winter break, March break, etc. As for structure, many liked the format we went with (eat first, and present afterwards) and are fine with the start time of 7 p.m. Locations – not always downtown, but ensure accessible parking and public transit.

As for cost/fees, the preference is to pay your own dinner and a small fee upfront to secure your spot. In some instances it would be alright to pay for dinner in advance (when a restaurants wants a deposit or prix fixe menu) but not the norm.

Mentorship

There was a strong interest in initiating a mentorship program. We will create a mentorship section on this web site and create a process for pairing up experienced professionals with students/starting professionals.

That’s it in a nutshell. Please leave a comment if there’s anything else you’re interested in addressing. Oh and remember the hashtag for Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa is #ggdottawa. Use it on Twitter, blog posts, photos from events etc.

That’s all and we are *really* excited to see you when we officially kick things off in September!

Playing video games for charity?

vgiggey — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:07:44 +0000

That’s right. Our friends from Fenix Solutions have put together a unique competition to benefit CHEO.

The action will be taking place on FOUR theatre screens with networked Xbox 360 consoles playing Gears of War 2!

The name of the game is Techboom and it will be held on August 28th, 2009 at Silvercity Gloucester, looking at 11PM as a start time. Go to the Techboom site for full details and register here.

I wonder if the fact that I don’t know what Gears of War is will get me kicked out of our Girl Geek Dinner Chapter?

Crowdsourcing GGD – July 6 – Topics for Discussion

kellyrusk — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:52:46 +0000

So our Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa Kick-off party is happening on Monday July 6 at 7 pm (have you RSVPed yet???). The purpose of this first event is to get the Girl Geek community in Ottawa together in one room and discover what we can do to make sure every GGD event is awesome and enjoyed. The added bonus of course is we’ll all have a great time anyway!

We’ve come up with a few questions to consider that we’d like your input on. If you can, have a look before attending–otherwise we’ll just chat about them on Monday:

What kinds of topics are you interested in for GGD?
What kinds of speakers? Do you have any recommendations or contacts?
Any ideas for sponsorships?
Any restaurant preferences?
Would you pay to confirm your attendance?
Would you rather pay a $10 fee ahead of time, or pay the cost of dinner ahead of time?
if you pay $10, what would you like us to do with the money? Buy
appetizers, use it for speakers, charity?
Anyone want to help organize? Doesn’t have to be a long term
thing. If you have a contact who you think would be a good speaker,
maybe you can help with just that one event.

Looking forward to seeing all you geeky girls there!

Girl Geek Dinner Kick-off: Crowdsourcing GGD Ottawa – July 6

kellyrusk — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 20:10:29 +0000

So we’ve been trying to launch Girl Geek Dinner in Ottawa for a few months now (actually Mel Gallant and Veronica Giggey have been thinking about it even longer!) and it’s been decided it’s *officially* launching in September. If you haven’t heard, Girl Geek Dinners was started in London, England by Sarah Blow as an event for geeky girls everywhere to get together, mix and mingle, learn something new and eat some great food.

However, before we kick things off, we want your help–we want to make sure that Girl Geek Dinner Ottawa is a) well attended, b) adding value to your life and c) tons of fun! So we’re inviting all geeky girls in Ottawa to our pre-launch kick-off party on Monday, July 6. It’s free to attend, but we ask you to please register in advance so we can give the venue accurate numbers.

Come, meet and greet, have some food and drinks and most importantly tell us what YOU want to see at Girl Geek Dinners. We’d love your feedback on everything from venues, speakers, time, day of the week–just let us know whatever you want and we’ll do our best to accommodate and make it the best geeky girl event in Ottawa!

Hope to see you there! Remember, Monday, July 6, 7 p.m. at the Fox and the Feather pub on Elgin Street. Don’t forget to register!