A recentGirls in Tech/Facebook meetupabout learning from your career mistakes was full of actionable pieces of advice, particularly on finding and keeping good mentors. Here are some of the best quotes of the night:
On the importance of having mentors:
“Build a network of women. You don’t have to be on your own.” -AT&T’s Amanda Stent
“Have a strong network both at work and outside of work. Talking about work issues helps you get through them.” -Catherine Hui
On choosing your mentors:
“Do your homework in approaching a mentor - don’t ask someone just based on reputation” -Tweeted by @AmyVernon
“If you don’t feel comfortable with your mentor, maybe that person isn’t the right mentor. “ -Bloomberg’s Catherine Hui
On being mentored:
“If you go to therapy, you don’t lie to your shrink. Same philosophy applies to mentors. Be honest with them.” - Nikki Stevens (@drnikki)
Who are your mentors? How did you find them? How important is it to you to have a mentor?
(Photos by M. Cecelia Bittner and Jessica Hullinger)
Bloomberg’s head of tech Catherine Hui handed out tons of great career tips at a recentGirls in Tech/Facebook meetup. Here, some of the best:
On mistakes:
“Acknowledge your mistakes and you’ll be fine.”
“It’s not about making a mistake - it’s about how you handle it.”
“The sky is going to fall at some point. The key is how you handle the post-mortem.”
On mentorship:
“Find someone who has your best interest in mind - that’s a true mentor.”
Don’t be shy. People want to help you.
Meet with your mentors/members of your network regularly.
Choose your mentor wisely.
Have at least one or two awesome geeks in your network of mentors.
On who she hires:
What blogs do they follow? What is their favorite news source? Does this person have a natural curiosity for what’s happening?
Can this person learn fast?
People don’t necessarily need to have a tech background- but they should have communication skills, be a team player, and most importantly they should have common sense/strong problem solving skills.
And finally, these gems:
“We [women] need to learn how to ask for things … Men never wait to ask.”
“I didn’t become who I am by accident. I struggled through the whole journey.”
Read more about the event here!Also, here are some tips for finding (and keeping) great mentors.
“We always seem to view our role models as if they’ve made perfect choices every step of the way. If only that were really true!”
Facebook’s NYC headquarters was packed to the brim Tuesday night with career-minded techies looking to gain insight from a panel of some of the tech industry’s leading ladies. The chat was organized by Girls in Tech, a global organization “focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of powerful, influential women in technology and entrepreneurship,” and was moderated by Kickstarter’s Bethany Sumner.
The conversation originally focused on career mistakes, but veered to cover everything from mentorship to sexism in the workplace, and left guests with a heap of actionable tips.
“I didn’t become who I am by accident. I struggled through the whole journey.” -Catherine Hui (Bloomberg)
“Don’t say ‘no’ out of fear. Say ‘yes’ to yourself. Know that you are worth it and that you can do it.” -Amanda J. Stent (AT&T)
“If you’re playing World of Warcraft 25 hours a week, you’re probably hiding from something in your life.” -Goranka Bjedov (Facebook)
“Make mistakes. Just don’t make the same mistake five times.” -Bjedov
“Until I fail empirically, I am good enough to do the job.” -Nikki Stevens (formerly Refinery29)
What’s the biggest career mistake you’ve ever made, and how did you overcome it? Looking back, what piece of advice would you give your younger self? Tell us on Twitter with #FCadvice.
Could the next big platform fit inside a messaging app?
Facebook’s new Android integration, Home, groups Instagram, maps, email, and other apps in one drawer. Its main screen has just three navigation options: “Apps,” “Last App,” and—the exceptional stand-alone app in the mix—“Messenger.”
Why has Facebook given such special treatment to a once tangential feature of its service?
Here’s a theory: “I think everyone is realizing that messaging is the killer app in mobile,” says Ted Livingston, the creator of a messenger app called Kik.
“Now it’s just who can wrap a platform around it the fastest.”
“At one level, [Home] is just the next mobile version of Facebook. At a deeper level, I think this can start to be a change in the relationship that we have with how we use computing devices.” -Mark Zuckerberg at the Facebook Home announcement address.”
Reading Between The Lines Of Mark Zuckerberg’s Vision Statement
But beyond being immersive, low-friction, and whatever other buzzword descriptors you’d like to attach to it, Home is a recognition a subtle and profound paradigm shift.
The Facebook Phone is finally here. And, as expected, it’s not really a phone at all.
Home, as the new product is called, is a free, downloadable skin that gives existing Android phone a total Facebook makeover, transforming both lock and home screens into immersive, edge-to-edge slideshows of photos and status updates.
Forget about checking Facebook on your iPhone or Android app. Or waiting until you get home. The social network introduced its own addition to the Android operating system in a highly-anticipated announcement today, called “Home.”
Home is a series of apps that you can install and that becomes the home of your phone.
“Our phones are designed around apps not people,” Zuckerberg said. “We want to flip that around.”
This being the Internet, however, people weren’t content to merely use the HRC’s logo in its original form. Quickly, new versions began popping up. Some were merely more artfully drawn equals symbols, but many more were humorous takes on the gay marriage debate, from popular maybe gay couples (Bert and Ernie, C3P0 and R2D2) to Internet memes (Grumpy Cat) to historic bits of cultural literacy that just happen to look like an equals sign (Mark Rothko). We’ve collected a gallery of some of our favorites above.
THE WEIRD THING ABOUT FACEBOOK: STATUS UPDATES ARE THE MOST MEMORABLE WRITING YOU DO
According to a new study, we are one and a half times more likely to remember them than any other form of written language. In fact, we remember the random online blathering of friends and family two and a half times more consistently than we remember faces.
Facebook posts, as well as Twitter posts, are so memorable because they are what Mickes calls “mind ready”: unedited and unfiltered. They’re off-the-cuff remarks and thoughts. These words, which flow quickly and easily from your friend’s mind onto his Facebook page, are then absorbed by you with similar ease.
