Tag Archives: digigirlz

National Girls Collaborative Institute Days 2-3 Recap

As mentioned in the first recap (which obviously you, my slavishly devoted readers, read), I’m in Tucson for the National Girls Collaborative Institute. Why? Because as someone with a growing interest in and passion for STEM education, I wanted to learn about the nuts and bolts of a project whose collaborative model has enabled and connected girl-focused STEM organizations across the country. And also, because NGCP asked me to speak about using social media as a community builder. And also because I work for a cool company that lets me go to these sorts of things.

Anyways, when I left off yesterday, I was about to go to a dinner/laser show at the University of Arizona’s Flandrau Science Center, which contains a planetarium, telescope, mineral museum and marine discovery center. If any of you are ever in Tucson, I definitely recommend going–U of A is justifiably famous for its geology and astronomy programs, and the Science Center is staffed with fervently knowledgeable geologists, gemologists, marine biologists and astronomers, plus a staggering amount of Wulfenite. The lazer show was set to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, I ate empanadas and nitroglycerin ice cream, Tucson is famous for its mid-century neon signs, sea cucumbers spew their guts into predators’ faces as a last resort, Jupiter shone bright and poor little Io is melting. (Want to work for SoftArtisans? We’re hiring.) Continue reading National Girls Collaborative Institute Days 2-3 Recap

Stories from the WIT Trenches: Stacia Misner

[This is the sixth in a series of posts exploring the personal stories of real women in technology. Every woman in tech overcame at the very last statistical odds to be here; this blog series aims to find out why, and what they found along the way. Those of you who work in the SQL Server BI arena are mostly likely familiar with Stacia Misner— the consultant, instructor and prolific author is one of  the MS BI stack’s greatest champions. Here, she talks tractors, the SQLBI community’s collective consciousness and growing up in the stars. For guidance and in-depth tutorials on all things SQL Server, SSRS, SharePoint and BI, check out Stacia’s blog and books! And if reading her story inspires you to share yours, please feel to email me.]

I’m Stacia Misner, a business intelligence consultant, author, and instructor specializing in the Microsoft business intelligence stack. I have been working in the business intelligence field since 1999 and started my own consulting company in 2006.

1)      Can you take us back to your “eureka!” moment—a particular instance or event that got you interested in technology?

I’ve always been interested in technology in one way or another. My parents were both programmers, although I don’t recall growing up thinking that I would follow in their footsteps. I was always very good at math and science, and was properly encouraged in those areas. I had the privilege of growing up in Houston, in the heart of the space industry, so all my friends’ parents (mostly fathers at the time, I suppose) were engineers or scientists. Technology seemed a normal part of life, and my friends and I grew up expecting that it would become more and more like Star Trek as time went on. Continue reading Stories from the WIT Trenches: Stacia Misner