Cape & Islands News

Go-Go Gadget...Geek Girl!

One hundred Cape women gather in Hyannis for Geek Girl Camp

   Attendees of Thursday night's Geek Girl Camp at the Heritage House in Hyannis.

Story & Photos by Samantha Pearsall

Last night about 100 female “geeks” from the Cape area congregated at the Heritage House on Main Street in Hyannis from 5:30 to 9:30 PM to learn more about the tech world in which they live and work and network amongst themselves at this first-ever Geek Girl Camp on Cape Cod.

Janel Kesten, graphic designer for New England Reprographics addresses the crowd.

What exactly is a geek girl? These are women who are interested in learning more about up-and-coming technology; how to use it and how to apply it to their businesses and careers. These women may not own every new piece of nanotechnology or be versed in all of the techy lingo, but they are confident and not afraid to “get their feet wet” in the tech industry.

“I’m pretty much connected to my computer all the time. You can always learn something new though and I’m a geek girl so that’s why I’m here tonight,” said Laura Taylor of Cape Cod Life Publications.

Leslie Fishlock, President/CEO of Genevate, is the Founder of Geek Girl Camp and has been a geek girl herself for over 35 years. She began the event by introducing the generous sponsors, including Computers Performance & Upgrades, The Community Bank, iStockPhoto, and Back Office Associates, who made Geek Girl Camp possible and helped keep the admission fee to just $25 per geek girl.

Six speakers from the tech industry on Cape Cod shared their own experiences in the field and techy tips to get any geek girl going on a new website, a blog, or even a Facebook page.

June Bertucci, President of Small Office Computer Support of Cape Cod has been a geek girl for 23 years. She started off the evening discussing basic ways to set up your desktop so that everything important will be “right at your finger tips.” Twenty-four-year-old Rebecca Noonan said she came to Geek Girl Camp because she needs to learn a lot when it comes to using the computer. “So this is great, very interesting.”

Budding "Geek Girls put their recently acquired tips to the test.

Using the Quick Launch option on the toolbars is an easy way to streamline data and ensure that it’s quickly and easily accessible, said Bertucci. She urged the geek girls to surf the web safely by downloading virus protection software, like Norton Antivirus. There is a variety to choose from, but only one software can be used at a time. Bertucci stressed the idea of backing up all important data to another source, such as a CD, flash drive, or external hard drive.

“Look at your website as a marketing investment every three to five years,” Paula Hersey, Owner of Penguin Digital Design, explained. She has been a geek girl for over 20 years and spoke about website creating and maintaining for small businesses. Many of the geek girls in attendance came to learn how to better manage their websites, and some wanted to even learn website basics.

Mary Harris, a sales manager for Avon, said, “I wanted to do a website that would go out to my whole district and I haven’t ventured out there yet. I thought the event was very informative.”

“I want to use my website more effectively and I just need to learn about computers anyway. I’m old enough that I really need to start from scratch though,” explained Judy Moran, a yoga instructor and nurse.

There are a number of websites where you can register a domain name, such as GoDaddy.com or Register.com, but Hersey advises to sign up for auto-renew “so you don’t have to worry about your website expiring.” There are three steps if a website does expire: A grace period, a 60-day redemption period, then “pending delete” when anyone else can pick up the expired domain name. One of the tips she gave was to have all of the staff use an email address that corresponds to the domain name to be more professional. Hersey added that email addresses must stay consistent; either use first names, last names, or a combination of the two. This, she recommends, can be used as a branding technique and it gives your company identity.

Julie Brooks, president of eCape, Inc. explains the etiquette of email.

Julie Brooks, President of eCape, Inc. 14-year geek girl enlightened the group with her Internet marketing expertise. She told the geek girls she would make them all “Internet marketing gurus in 15 minutes.” There are four main marketing tools on the Internet: search engines, like Google; email marketing, like newsletters or discount coupons; text or banner ads, such as pay-per-click advertising; and publicizing through an offline address, which is the least effective according to Brooks.

Bernette Cook, a website designer and artist, said, “I just launched my second website and I love learning about new ways to email market. And I’m really terrible at remembering the terms. You know what they are, but you don’t know what to call them when you’re talking to people. So this is really helpful in that way.”

Internet marketing is extremely beneficial to companies because the success is measurable, it’s relatively low cost and low risk, and it can be managed easily on a daily basis. Collecting customers’ email addresses is crucial for marketing purposes, said Brooks, and there are websites, like ConstantContact.com, to help you manage all of these email addresses. Google Analytics is a free service that provides companies with statistical information to “help keep track of their ad dollars and see where most of their business comes from,” Brooks said.

“Oh, you can just Photoshop that out” has become a common phrase these days and not just in the tech industry. Many of the geek girls came to the event specifically for the Photoshop session. “I am pretty proficient with computers, but I don’t know Photoshop at all. I did download the free program ahead of time so I can learn a little bit about it tonight,” said Susan Fernal, a marketer for senior center. Wendy Mullen, an office manager, also enjoyed the Photoshop session, however, she wished that there had been a specific workshop focused on it.

Janel Kesten, a graphic designer for New England Reprographics walked everyone through the process of editing and manipulating photographs. She detailed exactly how one changes the resolution of a photo to make it appropriate for web layout or even professional press because both require different pixels per inch, or ppi. Kesten said that resolution is something that you really can never have enough of. Having too little is no good because “you can’t make something out of nothing,” she joked. Kesten also demonstrated how to crop an image, add watermarks to a photo, and change the image size to make the photo fit into an email better.

“What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Blogger,’ who do you picture? Some fat single guy… he is out there. But so are celebrities, sports stars, more and more CEOs of major corporations, and of course lots and lots of people just like you,” said Beth Dunn who is the Director of Communications at The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and writer of the blog, Small Dots.

Although many geek girls last night were unfamiliar with blogging, Dunn insisted that there are many benefits to using it to promote your business. “Everyone gets to contribute to the conversation,” she said, “You have the power with this medium.” It is a free way to market your company or organization and personalize it for your customers. “Blogging shows the human face of the organization,” she explained. Blogs allow people to think out loud by commenting on peers’ blogs and network among other bloggers to further promote your business. The most important element to remember, she advised, is that “the blogosphere wants to hear your own unique voice, not you pretending to be somebody else.”

Last, but certainly not least, Fishlock rounded out the speakers with an informative session on social networking websites, such as Facebook, Reddit, LinkedIn, Del.ic.ious, and Flickr. Websites like these allow people to interact, share, and discuss ideas and this in turns creates opportunities for small businesses to grow. You can change or add to any information posted in real time and new media can be integrated.

Anyone can be a star, Fishlock said, if they commit the necessary time and effort into getting these websites and programs off the ground. Using these technologies can be extremely effective ways of promoting yourself and your business, but it calls for geek girls to be willing to try new things and be unafraid of making mistakes. “People want to know about you, not you disguising yourself as someone else,” she said. “Everyone’s got a unique story and you got to get it out there!”

---

Samantha Pearsall is a junior at Endicott College on the North Shore, majoring in Contemporary Journalism and minoring in Business Administration. A native Cape Codder from Falmouth, she writes about current Cape issues affecting college-aged Cape Codders. Visit Sam's blog on CapeCodToday.com here.