The tech road not taken 25 years ago

As there’s so much talk about getting women into tech I decided to figure out why I myself am not a woman in tech. You’d think I would be as someone who had access to computers from the late 1980s and even attended a programming class for kids

At 9 or 10 I remember being amazed at being able to make the green squares on the black screen jump around the screen at the computer classes in the local vocational college.

Computing in the late 1980s and early 1990s

We’d had a computer at home for some years at that stage – my dad had one at home as a secretary of a professional organisation – and my mother tells me I used to play a tennis-like game on it.

(I hadn’t bothered asking my parents before writing this piece so there’s a lot of memory gaps.)

I do remember playing computer games using a kind of a tape thing – but I’m not sure if that was the Atari or the Amiga or if there was a Commodore 64 in the mix somewhere too. Point is over the next few years (late 1980s/early 1990s) computers meant games (and typing up/printing out the odd bit of poetry, something I could do on a typewriter anyway). It did not mean coding.

Anyway back to the computer class. I often wonder what I could be capable of if I’d continued that? Would I have taken a different career path? What happened that diverted my interest? (The likelihood is it was a once-off 8-week course like the pottery and art I did at other times).

A world of imagination

Another important thing to add in is that as a child while reading was important so was play. Myself and my close friends were really strong on games filled with imagination. Our back gardens were a mountian, our tennis rackets machine guns and it didn’t really matter that the ‘Mask’ figurines and vehicles I remember most fondly playing with were marketed at boys. They were vehicles for imagination and stories. And stories do not have to be pink or pastel in colour, nor does Lego, which we played with loads too. And it was at the age of 12 with great sadness I closed the lid of the basket I kept all my ‘little people’ a mixture of figurines ranging from Annie characters to Mask men, Star Wars men and Lego men. I knew I was too old to continue that play.

Photography competition

Around 1990 I got my first camera, a Halinax and snapped away on it. That’s why I’m the one people turn to when looking for embarrassing school and teenage photos for hen parties.

I had access to SLR cameras at home later in my teens and really took a shine to photography.

Early adopters of the internet

Around 1995 we got the internet at home, possibly the first internet connection in the town my dad reckons. I’m saying 1995 as I recall spending time searching for REM lyrics instead of studying for my Leaving Cert. I definitely had it when repeating my Leaving as I recall printing off pics of the lovely Jared Leto from My So Called Life and putting them on the notice board in school, oh and images of the Armadillo from the Dime ad.

I could do stuff with DOS as far as I can recall to log into a computer back then, it was a very different world to how we access computers these days, but I’ve forgotten it all.

Reality clouded by a dream of film making

Oh I forgot to add that at that 11/12 age stage we got a camcorder and I attempted to make my first film (Kidnapped) but I had staffing problems all the actors kept on going on family holidays that summer. Spending my weekends watching MTV (when it was about music videos), I set my heart on becoming a film maker. I researched everything and I decided I wanted to do Communications in DIT (first) or DCU (second).

In 1995 I didn’t get the points and was offered Social Science in UCD on the degree list and Photography on the cert/diploma list. I decided to repeat because Communications combined a love of writing and we had the perception it’d be hard to afford photography equipment down the line. Got that wrong.

I still didn’t get enough points for Communications. But I did for the new Journalism degree which fitted closely with a love of writing. I used to joke, imagine if I didn’t get this I would have ended up doing Computers Science in DIT Kevin Street. That was next on my list. There are days I often wish I did get that. Because while I have developed great writing skills and had a great journalistic career, I’d love to be able to make the web stuff myself that I have ideas for. I’ve loads of tech and app ideas (and loads of writing ideas too).

Journalism meet the internet

In September 1996 I was the only person in my class of 34 wannabe journalists that had used the internet. (Or heard of it to be honest – we were asked by one of the lecturers Wolfgang and had to do a show of hands, which is how I can be so sure of that.)

An important lesson was learnt when I used the internet as a source of information for my first article – don’t trust the internet. I was given out to. Of course things have changed, that’s where we now go for verifiable sources eg press releases and company websites, but you still have to be on the lookout.

The tech stream has stayed with me. In 2000 I worked for Sheila McDonald’s tech news website Electricnews.net for a few months and also wrote tech articles for John Kennedy (now of Siliconrepublic.com) when he was editor of a magazine called B2B. I’ve written loads of tech articles over the years for many publications and have always felt comfortable with it.

Getting on with it

I’ve been an early adopter with social media, though not always, I only started using Twitter and ‘got’ it in 2009.

Setting up my own business in the last few years has led me to know other technology and web businesses and people through courses, networking, events and client projects. It has also given me ideas for technology businesses (software as a service/SaaS stuff). As a side bar I should add it’s probably not surprising I’m self-employed. I’m fourth generation entrepreneur on the Larkin side (non-farming) and I’m proud of that. My first business (I broke even) was making Fimo (coloured bakeable clay) badges to order for girls in school when I was about 14 – this was off my own bat not part of the Mini Company programme.

What’s stopping me?

I do wish I could code or understand more about the intricacies of technology. That would definitely help. I don’t know that I have the time though. If I had the time the first things on my list would be to see more friends/family, get exercise more, read more, do more creative writing, take more photos and do stuff with my photos, travel more, get one of my tech ideas off the ground.

It may take a few years but I do hope some day that one of my tech ideas will be a viable business/product and then I will be a woman in tech. There may end up being 30 years between my first experience of coding at the age of 9 or 10 to a few years from now.

One of the things I wonder about in relation to all of this is maths. I got 31% in my maths test in the summer exams in second year and was put into the pass class. In fifth year the career guidance teacher told me I should be doing honours maths. A bit late now! I thought. I seriously considered the extra work that would be required to catch up on honours maths for the Leaving Cert having only done pass for the Junior Cert and decided I’d stick with pass. Is this something I should have been pushed to do? It is hard to know, but I assume it ruled me out of a few courses anyway.

My mother would have had an interest in career trends to the extent we were made do German in school because that’s where the jobs would be. She reckons I was sent on the computer class course as they knew the teacher or that it was the thing to do.

Where am I going with this?

Anyway the point is sometimes you have to take a round about way to where you’re going to end up. And sometimes it is ok to pursue your true loves and my true love has always been writing. I was given opportunities, I stuck with something I loved and have managed to make a living from writing professionally since the age of 19/20. Ironically, if I hadn’t done well enough to get Journalism, I’d have ended up doing Computer Science. Chance had a hand to play. when I got my offer of a place there was a star beside it. Not everybody with the exact points had gotten a place.

And another post script to this piece was I only did journalism to get a degree – I had originally intended in pursuing a career as a complementary health professional having done a cert in Indian Head Massage at 16 and was Ireland’s youngest Reiki master at 17 but that is a story for a different day.

Finally, back to what happened with the computer class that diverted my interest? The likelihood is it was a once-off 8-week course like the pottery and art I did at other times. So perhaps if there were other classes like that – whether marketed at girls only or mixed groups – I would have been encouraged to go. It wouldn’t have stopped me getting that typewriter though which is responsible for a lot.

If I could change anything?

I wish this brand/kids toy was out when I was a kid: GoldieBlox. Go on enjoy the video here on YouTube.

(Embedding was disabled on YouTube).