Category Archives: News & Reviews

December 20, 2012 · 10:41 am

TechWomen Mentors’ Reunion

The TechWomen mentors gathered for a reunion and evening holiday party at Anar Simpson’s home in Saratoga, California, this week. Anar was a TechWomen mentor in both 2011 and 2012 and is on the TechWomen entrepreneurship advisory committee. At the event, Heather Ramsey (Director for Strategic Partnerships, Institute of International Education) gave us details about the October 2013 TechWomen program (more below), and the February 2013 delegation to Jordan – which I plan to join! I caught up with news from my sister Mentors and told them about my new job as the Vice President for Solutions at the MentorCloud startup.

Carmel Jud from Rising International gave us a presentation about her organization and brought in crafts made by women entrepreneurs – including some delightful lady dolls from Afghanistan. In the picture above, the doll on the lower left was the first one made. The doll on the lower right is the one I purchased for our family doll collection.

TechWomen potential Mentees may now apply for the 2013 program. TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) from the Middle East and Africa together with their counterparts in the United States for a professional mentorship and exchange program. TechWomen connects and supports the next generation of women leaders in STEM fields by providing them access and opportunity to advance their careers and pursue their dreams.

During the five-week program, participants engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies in Silicon Valley, participate in workshops and networking events throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and travel to Washington DC, for targeted meetings and special events to conclude the program.

In 2012, 41 TechWomen Emerging Leaders participated from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia and Yemen. The 2013 TechWomen program has expanded to include women from Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Zimbabwe. TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). The Mentee Application deadline is February 22nd, 2013.

The Professional Mentor application will be available April 1st, 2013 (deadline is June 1st, 2013). Cultural Mentor application will be available July 1, 2013 (deadline to apply is August 1st, 2013).

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Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, technical women, TechWomen

December 6, 2012 · 10:21 pm

Interesting Data on Mentoring, and on Internet Growth

This week has produced two very interesting data analyses, one on mentoring success and failure, and the other on Internet growth. I recommend them to you:

A major new scholarly report has just been published on mentoring called “Characteristics of Successful and Failed Mentoring Relationships: A Qualitative Study Across Two Academic Health Centers” by Sharon E. Straus, Mallory O. Johnson, Christine Marquez, and Mitchell D. Feldman, January 2013, Academic Medicine, Volume 88, No. 1. While this report is in the context of the medical profession, there is much we can all learn from the new findings. The authors completed a qualitative study through the Departments of Medicine at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine between March 2010 and January 2011. Successful mentoring relationships were characterized by reciprocity, mutual respect, clear expectations, personal connection, and shared values. I included more about this research in my recent MentorCloud blog entry.
Mary Meeker, a partner at the famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, has just published a fascinating analysis: “2012 Internet Trends Year-End Update.” I found the country-by-country data on smart phone usage growth particularly interesting. Check it out at VentureBeat.

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December 4, 2012 · 11:38 pm

Shakespeare Garden Books

I collect Shakespeare garden books. The photographs in this blog entry are of one of the most beautiful books I own: Henry Ellacombe’s The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare, 1896.

What is a Shakespeare Garden? Such a garden can be inspired by Shakespeare’s works, or can include plants he mentioned, or can reproduce a famous play setting. There are many famous Shakespeare gardens, including those at The Huntington (Pasadena CA), Golden Gate Park (San Francisco CA), Brooklyn Botanic Garden (New York), Central Park (New York), Northwestern University (Evanston IL), The Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington DC), and of course the garden of Anne Hathaway (Shakespeare’s wife) in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England. Check out my Pinterest Board to see pictures of over 50 Shakespeare plants. Most plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s works are still common today, 450 years later.

Publications about Shakespeare plants and gardens have been popular for 150 or more years – since they are in the charming intersection of beauty and literature. Some examples:

Beisley, Sidney, Shakespeare’s Gardens, Longmans, Green: 1864
Bloom, J. Harvey, Shakespeare’s Garden, Tower Books: 1971 (reprint of the 1903 edition)
Carter, Annie B., Shakespeare Gardens / Design, Plants, and Flower Lore, Dorrance & Co.: 1937
Chronicle Books, Shakespeare’s Flowers, 1994
Crane, Walter, Flowers from Shakespeare’s Garden, Macmillan Publishing: 1980 (reprint of the 1906 edition)
Damrosch, Barbara, Theme Gardens, Workman Publishing: 1982
De Bray, Lys, Fantastic Garlands: an anthology of flowers and plants from Shakespeare, Blandford Press: 1982
Dent, Alan, World of Shakespeare: Plants, Taplinger Publishing: 1973
Ellacombe, Henry N., The Plant-Lore and Garden-Craft of Shakespeare, Edward Arnold: 1896
Eyler, Ellen C., Early English Gardens and Garden Books, (booklet) Folger Books: 1979
Fleissrer, Robert F., A Rose by Any Other Name / A Survey of Literary Flora from Shakespeare to Eco, Locust Hill Press: 1989
Fox, Levi, An Illustrated Introduction to Shakespeare’s Flowers, (booklet) Jarrold Publishing: 1990
Fox, Levi, The Shakespearean Gardens, (booklet) Jarrold Publishing: 1953
Grindon, Leopold Hartley, Shakespere Flora, Palmer & Howe: 1883
Hales, Mick, Shakespeare in the Garden, Abrams: 2006
Hubbart, Edith, America’s First Shakespeare Garden, (booklet) 1938
Hunt, Doris, The Flowers of Shakespeare, Webb & Bower: 1980
Huntington Botanical Gardens, Garden Notes, (booklet) 1978
Kerr, Jessica, Shakespeare’s Flowers, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.: 1969
Law, Ernest, Shakespeare’s Garden / Stratford-Upon-Avon, (booklet) Selwyn & Blount: 1922
Pallen, Nancy Shumaker, Shakespeare’s Garden, Cedco Publishing: 1999
Pomeroy, Elizabeth, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, Botanical Gardens, Philip Wilson Publishers: 1983
Pickles, Sheila, The Complete Language of Flowers / A Treasury in Verse and Prose, Pavilion: 1998
Prince, Martha, “Shakespearean Bouquet”, from American Horticulturalist v.64, number 4, April 1985
The Printing Corporation, A Trip Through Internationally Famous Golden Gate Park / San Francisco, California, (booklet) 1937
Putnam, Clare, Flowers and Trees of Tudor England, New York Graphic Society: 1972
Rendall, Vernon, Wild Flowers in Literature, Scholartis Press: 1934
Rodway, Avril, A Literary Herbal, Leprechaun Library: 1980
Rohde, Eleanour S., Shakespeare’s Wild Flowers, Medici Society: 1963 (reprint of the 1935 edition)
Ryden, Mats, Shakespearean Plant Names / Identifications and Interpretations, 1978
Savage, F.G., Flora and Folk-Lore of Shakespeare, E.J. Burrow & Co.: 1923
Simons, Adelma G., Herb Gardens of Delight, Hawthorn Books: 1974
Singleton, Esther, Shakespeare Garden, AMS Press: 1933
Thorpe, James, William Shakespeare at the Huntington, (booklet) The Huntington Library: 1977
Warner, James A., and Margaret J. White, Shakespeare’s Flowers, Middle Atlantic Press: 1987

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Tagged as garden, Shakespeare

November 30, 2012 · 9:40 pm

Walking in the Middle of the Road

Down the middle of the road, my husband John and I go for long walks each night. Willow Glen is a pleasant old neighborhood of San Jose, California, with wide streets and many big trees. Probably for reasons of economy, street lights are only at the intersections. To reduce the light pollution for the Lick Observatory on nearby Mount Hamilton, San Jose’s street lights are yellow (rather than white). As you can see in the photo above (taken about 7 pm tonight), all of this means that our streets are very dark at night. If you add in residential driveway dips and the haphazard condition of the pavements in our area (see photos below), walking down the middle of the road is less dangerous than keeping to the dark and broken sidewalks. In the evening roadway, we can see lights of the cars heading our way.

There is a friendly community of night time dog walkers and couples like ourselves who work during daylight hours. We know which pairs of little yippy dogs are friendly, and to keep to the other side when Monster the excitable husky is dragging his human around. We keep an eye open for the couple trailed by a bobbing light – the cat who follows their evening walk. John and I sometimes see our wilder neighbors – the raccoons and opossums who come out of the storm drains to hunt and explore in the dark. Even on a blustery rainy night, Willow Glen is a charming place to walk in the middle of the road.

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November 30, 2012 · 2:30 pm

Hopper Conference, TechWomen Press

I have been honored to have been included in two news stories recently:

“Sharing the Hopper Conference” – a story about my daughter Jessica and me attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing together, on the fascinating website Anitasquilt.org
United Nations – Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia Weekly News story (Issue 45/52) “Women and ICT”, about the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing 2012 panel “Arab Women in Computing: Challenges vs. Aspirations” for which I was the moderator. The UN ESCWA story is about the participation of the impressive Sukaina Al-Nasrawi, Associate Social Affairs Officer at the ESCWA Centre for Women in Beirut, Lebanon. Sukaina was one of the amazing participants in the U.S. State Department’s 2011 TechWomen mentoring program, four of whom returned as GHC12 panelists (the others were: Reham Nasser of Egypt, Maysoun Ibrahim of Palestine, and Hania Gati of Algeria). Read more about the panel in my 4 October 2012 blog entry and in Larissa’s 7 October 2012 blog entry.

Here are screen shots of the news stories:

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Tagged as Algeria, Egypt, Jessica, Lebanon, Mentoring, Middle East, Palestine, technical women, TechWomen

November 27, 2012 · 1:49 pm

MentorCloud Blog

I have just started writing blog entries for MentorCloud. So far, I have written three:

“Resources for Mentors and Mentees” (8 fascinating conversation boosters)
“MentorCloud Offices” (Plug and Play, Sunnyvale, CA)
“Remote Mentoring” (Benefits and Challenges)

The picture above shows my 2012 TechWomen Mentee and two of her co-workers in Beirut, Lebanon, with whom I met this morning by using Skype from my office here in the Silicon Valley. She and I are also using MentorCloud to communicate.

19 October 2019: Links Updated. For more about MentorCloud business practices, see Collecting a Labor Judgement (15 January 2016).

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November 22, 2012 · 2:24 pm

Happy Thanksgiving!

In between celebrating my brother’s wedding, honoring the first anniversary of my father’s death, trying to finish the apparently-unending construction on the new porch, and starting work at MentorCloud, this has been a busy autumn. Today, we take time to give thanks for our blessings and bounty among family and friends. I hope that you too can pause for this moment to consider and be thankful for the good in your life.

In Willow Glen California, the sycamore, pistache, myrtle, and maple trees are putting on a glorious display of red leaves. I delight in the color, even when raking them up…

Gathering Leaves

Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.

I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.

But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.

I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who’s to say where
The harvest shall stop?

by Robert Frost