Woman at the Wheel **

Status symbols vary from country to country, but cars have always been a cornerstone. According to BBC news, post-communist Russia is one place that takes their cars very seriously, and more-so, cars have long been considered *cough *cough “a man’s business”.

Women driver’s and car owners are still seen somewhat as a novelty in Russia, but this is all about to take an abrupt change. The post-communist generations of female Russians have access to good quality jobs, which brings about purchasing power. These young professional women are in control of their finances and they are ready to use it … on motor vehicles.

However, it is not a walk in the park. Chauvinism seems to be unchecked in terms of women drivers. This excerpt from a BBC interview tells how one Russian driving instructor thinks women taking to the road:

“Women are by nature more shy. They might get scared,”

“They might close their eyes, like this.” Driving instructor covers his eyes with his hands.

Think of how it might be getting instructed by this person as a woman new to the world of motoring … spine-chilling!

A few things have happened to combat such narrow-mindedness. BMW has a female driving instructor who only teaches women, and a new magazine called “Woman at the Wheel” – a lifestyle magazine that focuses on cars and fashion – has hit the streets in Moscow. Whilst the magazine reportedly contains useful tips such as how to complete a perfect parallel park, it also contains tips on how to complete a perfect exit from your vehicle.

In any case, the magazine is an attempt to bridge the gap between women and driving, and I for one wish it the best of success. I am convinced that such efforts will help to empower women in Russia to “take control of the wheel” in the years to come.

PS. Another prominent motor vehicle magazine targeted to women has existed since the mid-90’s called Woman Motorist (USA publication)

**Completely off topic

Women on Board

A response has come!  ”Women on Board” is a new database created by Danish Industry and KVINFO (the Danish Centre for Information on Women and Gender) in response to the absence of women on IT-related boards & committees in Denmark.

The database is aimed as a recruitment list for those businesses that want more women represenatatives on their board, but often do not know where to find the candidates.

 http://womenonboard.dk

Women not on IT-committees – “a phenomenon”

If you’re hanging around Denmark these days, you’ll notice that there has been quite a bit of focus on gender and IT. Many girls stop playing computer games in their teens, teenage women on the whole are not aspiring for an education in IT-related fields, and women are not representative in IT-firms …and so on and so forth.

Computerworld released the news today that out of Denmark’s top 100 IT-firms there are:

no women in the position of board chairperson,

two women holding the position of administrative director, 

and only 9% of all board members are women
[Computerworld Number 38. 20. October 2006].

So the two poles are the idea of the “Old boys club” vs. the idea of a shallow “recruitment pool” of women. Networking does (weirdly) often happen in the “locker room” – a space where not exactly all the “players” are present. So when considering people for positions on the board, individuals may have a tendency to name someone from their own inner network – or as Caroline Søeborg Ahlefeldt noted to Computerworld,

“ …The fact is that there are adequate qualified women, but men recommend other men to head positions” (Computerworld – my translation of Danish text)

Where-as IBM’s vice director refers to another slant – IBM’s efforts in recruiting women to head committee positions has been without great success due to an apparent scarcity of women in the branch itself.

It sounds like a school-yard he-said, she-said – nevertheless, 20+ years down the road we stand and this “variance” has not truly started to be resolved. Norway has an affirmative action policy stating that each sex must represent at least 40% of the members, as noted in the Norwegian Gender Equality Act,

“Since it is not possible to achieve gender equality merely by prohibiting discriminatory treatment, measures which give one sex certain advantages in some areas in the short or the long term are regarded as necessary.” http://www.likestillingsombudet.no/english/act_scope.html

I find it disheartening to think that a law must be implemented to see official IT committees with diversified membership. For that reason, I look forward to seeing renewed efforts to diversify this sector not only by the government, but by the institutions of education (also focusing on how IT is being taught), and by the firms that would proffer from having diversity (thinking more about management training, advancement schemes, and mentoring programs from within).

Diversity is key to innovation. Let’s see initiatives that embed the roots for new growth into an innovative and transformed IT sector.

(Another post not directly related to computer gaming – sorry)

Bully Bully

Rockstar games is coming out with yet another controversial game this month by the name of Bully . You get to play Jimmy Hopkins, a Wayne Rooney look-a-like kid in a school overflowing with stereotypical nerds, bullies, Snape-esque teachers and manipulative passive young women. It doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary for Rockstar, actually it seems to be their standard recipe put in new clothing.

Yet, in the UK the 15+ age game has caused a commotion, where the big question of media effects is raised again – do such violent games, and in this particular case, games that depict many of the players “everyday lives” (pretty much just the school context), bring about an effect on the consumers “real life”?

I have only seen the previews, so I can only guess that the game follows the existing Rockstar recipe of hard hitting fight scenes, but also a well wound-up setting that might also provide for thought provoking instances. If nothing else, the game has re-aimed the spotlight on the seriousness of bullying in schools. Let’s hope that is the media effect of Bully here – awareness raising of the real issue in “real life”.

Dance me to the keyboard …

A new MMO is on the way – Dance! – and as the intro notes,

“Is an amazing new FREE ‘club style’ dancing game that lets you hang out with your friends, and challenge them on the dance floor.”

Hit songs, dance teams and national competions are buzz words along with couples competitions, finding a mate, and even, yep – you guessed it, getting married! Dance! will manage to gather a couple of dollars here and there through character customization and in-game advertising.

Who will play this game? The target market is music lovers (& I’m guessing top-40 here), but as the space is seemingly a virtual chat-room/dressing room, I’m taking a guess that Dance! will be heavily marketed towards young women (If you see any advertising for Dance! – let me know where!), and it will be interesting to see which brands & ads get into this game space, and how much money a player will be using to “look the right way” (other interesting issues such as age resitrictions or purchasing resitrictions will be interesting too). There is a BETA out, so join up now and tell us what Dance! is really about!

LetzPlay & the Danish Night of Culture

Last Friday was the annual “Danish night of culture“, where my project “LetzPlay” held a multiplayer computer gaming event for women at Boomtown netcafé. As always, Boomtown was brimming with groups of blokes having a night out together, playing World of Warcraft, Counter-Strike, Battlefield and the like, so our little event turned a few heads.

Of the O-so-many Danish Night of Culture participants (65.497 with a culture-pass), 25 turned up to our little soiree. And before you turn on your calculator (we have around a 0.04% participation rate - or 0.08% if considering that the event was only available to half of the participants),  I/LetzPlay still consider the event a success. Several of the women have joined the LetzPlay gaming group, as they noted that they haven’t got anyone else already within their network that they feel that they can play with.

There was a mother and daughter who came to have a new, joint experience. A group of six friends came in to play as their Danish Night of Culture theme was “something that we never would consider doing” (and to put that in perspective, this group of women had just come from a viewing of a cadaver). 95% of the participants were “newbies” (in this case – new to modern computer gaming, never had played a multiplayer game, and had never played in a netcafé before).

The reports that women make up over half of online gamers  (this would include free games like chickstop.com, MMOG’s and the like) which I heard broadcast the day after the event seem to be an illusion to the voiced opinions that I hear from manywomen, and from gaming experiences like LetzPlay, where we time after time see literally no women in the public gaming arena (netcafés). Of course, public gaming is a whole other context, yet I wonder about the transition from being a casual or “domestic” gamer to being a highly visible gamer.  Is this new wave of women gaming on-line done with, or through, existing social networks? Do these gamers need to establish new connections to “fit in”? Women do game – undoubtedly – but what is really at stake in gaming in the public space? This is why I/LetzPlay considers the huge 0.04% turnout a success story.

It was great to see

1) so many women gaming in the public and visible space of the netcafé,

2) newbies to gaming throwing themselves into something that is still stigmatized as something “nerdy”, or “not for them”,

3) existing social groups coming together to play an active social activity.

I certainly hope to see more of those 50+% of women gamers on-line coming out into the public arena: if the public face of gaming was more of a mish-mash of gamers: girls, men, women and boys, perhaps it would make it easier for others to step into this social, fun and skillful leisure activity … I will, for one, be keeping my eyes peeled for new events for women and computer gaming, “sightings” of women and girls gaming in public and online, and so forth.

      

D3’s are comin’!!!

Only a little month away is the first “Danish Electronic Entertainment Expo” – AKA D3’s. Interestingly the “official E3” – the original American Electronic Entertainment Expo – is getting a revamp this year – ESA (Entertainment Software Association), owner of E3Expo, has stated that,

“Over the years, it has become clear that we need a more intimate program, including higher quality, more personal dialogue with the worldwide media, developers, retailers and other key industry audiences.” – Douglas Lowenstein, President of the ESA

And voila – D3 steps in – but will they continue that “trade show” look?

This will be Scandinavia’s first large scale gaming expo, and it will be interesting to see whether it’s a carbon copy of the former E3’s (laced with booth babes) or if it raises the bar and does something different. The program looks to be extremely product orientated, however, there are a few puddles for playing in on the program such as; a “Learning Lab”, for knowledge-sharing and discussion on and about gaming; a meeting with gaming academia and Danish game developers called “New Danish Gaming”, which hopefully will result in some fertile debate; … and of course there is a Girl Gamers section (*sigh*).

The official program will be published next week, and I’ve ordered my ticket – so watch this space for “considerations” of this latest computer gaming event.

Link: http://www.d3expo.dk/

PS3 for dummies …

The release of the new giant in gaming – the PS3 – is on its way … although the release date has once again been shifted – now for a Danish release in March 2007! So, we get a little more time to ask ourselves “is the PS3 worth waiting for?”  Do we the consumers have the economy to support such a dear little thing?

I for one do not.

“The most sophisticated entertainment machine for consumers worldwide” … hmm. It is definitely sophisticated, but as an entertainment machine – I don’t think I can keep up with its golden (*Mac white) glean. For economically strong users perhaps, or for those who really get “their money’s worth” for networking with friends, family entertainment and so on – but what about us single women with a gaming poor network? The console costs the same as a round trip to Guam and a single game is 600 Danish crowns – that’s a lot of dineros to shell out.

Problem is – I’m stuck with PS … whilst I have very few friends to share games with, at least there are a few. If I shifted over to the Nintendo Wii (the console I find most tempting) I would narrow that down to zero contacts to share games with.

Perhaps within our small gaming networks we should be arranging meetings for group investment, and ask – “what do we want to play”… I for one would get more “sophisticated entertainment” out of my console if I could access more than the game that I bought it with (and that offer will probably first start in 2010!)

So, 9pm – my place, let’s hear about community console preferences

World of Warcraft – where new collaborative methods are put to the test

According to the Danish newspaper “Computerworld” (print 8. September 2006) the leaders of Danish Hi-tech businesses should be paying more attention to the methods of American Japanese Internet entrepreneur Joichi Ito. Ito has been busy fine tuning a new model of management within the virtual world framework of World of Warcraft (WoW). His WoW Guild is somewhat of a collective guinea pig for testing out new management models that, when transplanted into a proposed new company (a company whose employees will supposedly be recruited from Ito’s guild), will blow the exisiting management models out of the water.
The tone of the editorial note really questions

1) Whether Denmark is really a part of the global “technorati”? 

2) Whether there is anyone really pushing the envelope around here?

If there were a 90’s slogan slapped onto this it might be “I wanna be like Joichi”.

Looking forward to hearing more about the 9 year old as a department head.
See Joici Ito’s comments here.

Boost your CV – be a Google Image game tester

Is it a game? Is it free testing? Whichever one you choose – it’s a way to boost your gaming CV (especially for those with no experience.)  

I have played at least a dozen times and have never reached over 500 points. (Top scores round out around the 2,000,000 mark – hmm)

http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/