Geek Girls
★ Guide ★

Cultivating a User-Centered Culture

From design to production to project management to customer service and support, this session aims to help web development teams view work product as a direct outcome of a work culture that includes and respects users at every level. Beginning with the "big" things that management does to set the tone of a company like hiring policies, vision and values, and moving into discussion around how individual team members affect work culture (and therefore, work product) through everyday user advocacy? This session will prove the hard business value of soft, squishy terms like emotional intelligence, intellectual curiosity, collaboration, and vulnerability. >> Vote for our proposal here so we can bring this topic to SXSW! <<

Social Media 101

How can businesses use social media tools to connect with employees, clients and customers? Additionally, how can people use social media tools to connect with colleagues, clients, and build industry relationships? From those who have been using Facebook since college to those who avoid Twitter like the plague, the session aims to make web technology accessible and exciting. Complete with a step-by-step walk through of how to create a professional social media strategy that really works, including real-world examples of people and organizations finding value with these tools.

Minding & Managing Your Personal Brand Online: Social Media for Professionals

When thinking about professional development it’s hard to ignore the impact of social media in business.  Networking no longer takes place on the golf course or during happy hour.  It’s happening all the time and at the speed of light.  So how do we think about and make use of Social Media tools in a strategic way? How do we make the right connections to support our business and our brand?  This session is designed to illuminate the Social Media landscape in a way that’s accessible, strategic and fun.

From marketing to education to building a community for yourself and your brand, there are a myriad of opportunities being missed.  This session aims to bridge the gap by equipping attendees with the tools they need to make good use of digital tools now. Attendees will learn basic social media strategies and skills that you can immediately put to work for yourself, and your business.

Embracing Chaos: An Interactive Project Management Survival Guide

Traditional media tactics employ a traditional way of thinking about communication and creative: you create it, you control it, you put it out to a mass audience. New media tactics (whether web sites, banner ads, or social networks) require everyone involved to embrace a certain amount of chaos at every level (fonts, colors, layouts, platforms, browsers, speeds of different connections, the loss of control of the "message" -- ACK!).

So, what does this mean for PMs? How can they get teams made up of old-school creatives and new-school nerds to collaborate effectively? How can they hone their own skills to shift into managing interactive projects — or be able to take on all elements of an integrated campaign? How can they tap into the  knowledge of their Interactive team members without feeling like a dummy?

 This session speaks to that, walking attendees through a new media project and discussing how to keep team members connected and collaborating from beginning to end. 

Other Topics

• Embracing Users, Embracing Chaos: A Designer's Survival Guide to Interactive
• Creating Effective Websites

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