Women In Technology: “Geekette” Eileen Brown: From Merchant Sea Woman to Social Media Guru by Genevieve L’Esperance MSP

Eileen is a real hero for women in technology. Her story, like so many others, begins anywhere but in a classroom in computer science. She’s one of many high profile ladies who got their introduction to technology in the most unexpected way.

In fact Eileen is even more unusual in that she chose to work as a merchant seaman in the navy! This is not exactly your typical female career choice and considering it was over 20 years or more ago makes it even more compelling a story. While working on some of the biggest frigates in the world involving movement of supplies Eileen got a sample of how inefficient the whole process was and early attempts at “modernizing” this were met with dismal failure. Long story short, Eileen got curious and started coding and building out a new supply chain type program that won her rave reviews. And that was the beginning of her love affair with technology.

Eileen’s last post at Microsoft was as the Exchange Evangelist in the UK with over 150 people under her command. Her technical blogs were followed shockingly by thousands of very technical guys who saw a real guru in Eileen and respect her vast knowledge on many topics in IT. In fact she has taken that knowledge of unified communications and with it an enormous knowledge of social media interaction, hernetworking skills and became the face of social media business strategy, community and crisis management at Amaastra.

What’s really important is that Eileen has spent the better part of 2 decades trying to engage women the world over to understand how important their participation in this industry is and she has served as speaker and session coordinator at Microsoft’s Tech Ed conferences for several years as the lead for Women In Technology events. She was one of the biggest promoters of the worldwide phenomena Geek Girl Dinners, which I have attended in my own city. She also has been very successful with another one of her ventures CWT, Connecting Women In Technology, where she almost singlehandedly gathered women executives from the most competitive rivals and is now up to 5 conference events where each has contributed significantly on multiple topics and by taking turns hosting these events.

Eileen is an “empowering” role model and one of my mentors. She is about making others stand out and realize their potential. In engaging others and making their incredible stories come to life she is in fact herself, a hero.

https://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/recognising-female-talent-in-your-organisation/

I saw this on Eileen’s blog the other day and I know where my vote would be but if you happen to know anyone in the UK pass it on!

Lynn, like Eileen Brown, has been engaging women it tech for over 20 years. She has developed and delivered events at Tech Ed like Women Build, been a huge driving force as part of Microsoft’s Digigirlz program and was also very involved in Microsoft’s WIT (Women in Technology) program. And she revels in being called a Geekette.

Catch Eileen’s fascinating blogs on social media at: https://eileenbrown.wordpress.com/