Transcript: Girl Geek: Meet Sarah Blow, founder of Girl Geek Dinners

This transcript is from a PodTech.net podcast at:
http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/1699/girl-geek-meet-sarah-blow-founder-of-girl-geek-dinners

Guest: Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Host: Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Well hello! My name is Maryam Scoble and you're watching The ScobleShow. Tonight we have Sarah Blow with us; she is the founder of the London Girl Geek Dinners. She is also a software programmer by day and a party girl at night.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Thanks Maryam.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, without further ado here Sarah...

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Cool.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Hi, Sarah. So, tell us a little bit about why you founded the London Girl Geeks Dinner. I was there last night, I had a great time. There were about at least 50/50 girls and boys, so that's not quite usual for the Geek Dinners that I have attended before, so it was great. So, tell us about it.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Okay, well the London Girl Geek Dinners started at one of Robert's event pretty much where I went along to one of the ordinary geek dinners which was organized by (Inaudible), a friend of ours and basically I was one of about seven or eight girls over there and..

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
How many people were there?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
150 people.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
And only seven girls.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
And only seven girls, and out of those seven there were about three or four that were marketing and they were quite a lot louder than the geeky girls. So, they got lot more of the attention and say as a result the technical girls that she accused for -- assumed to be marketing girls. And I accused of being a marketing girl by one of a friend of my friend and I got really annoyed by it basically. I didn't completely upset them or anything and didn't tell them that and turned around and afterwards had a chat with one of my friends on the train back. He said how could we get more of the girls into these kinds of events and we had a chat on the train and we felt the biggest problem is the male-female ratio. So, how do we normalize it? The easiest way to do that is turn around and say when the guys can't attend them unless they bring a girl with them. So, it was really obvious to me what you could do to do, so we just kind of took it from there and I after having managed to do this table dinner and just took the idea from there and went on.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
How many have you had so far?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
The London one, this is Number 9; internationally, probably around 12-13.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, internationally they are going all over the world?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
They are starting to grow.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
What else -- where you are working with?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
At the moment we've got Nottingham, Brighton; they've talked about doing one in Bristol at some point. They used to have (Inaudible) setup earlier this month and I have passed that onto the (Inaudible) girl in Bristol, and I've also been talking with people in South Africa, and Japan, and India as well.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Wow.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
There were a few talks about Seattle or somewhere like that from a few people who worked at Microsoft. So, it is starting to grow around the world, and I'm thinking that the idea is that the idea is actually going to grow internationally long-term, I'm hoping.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Excellent, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
We should cover where we are right now because there's noises in the background, and alcohol -- oh! And who is this?

Speaker
Sir, it's just your apple juice.

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
Thank you.

Speaker
You guys carry on.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, we are in a huge hotel actually here in London. He said he had a quite place and he could get us drinks and he said the magic word. So, we followed him. He actually managed to get two cabs by one wave, I have to get that from him and we're here. So, you said you got accused of being a marketing girl, is that a bad thing?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
It is when you're a software engineer and an embedded software engineer at that, because I take pride in actually being able to program and do all those technical things; because it is something that I enjoy doing and marketing isn't my function, I've never even tried doing marketing at the time, so it was kind of (Inaudible).

Robert Scoble - ScobleShow
There is editorial commentary coming from behind the camera here.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
No, I don't want to do marketing, I'm technical. I will be seem to be technical damn it; so, basically just turn around to the guy and embarrassed him slightly, because I had a Binary watch on and he didn't notice it. So, he turned around said, "Well, you won't be interested in this you are marketing, don't worry about it you just sit in the patio for a minute," or something like that and I just got really annoyed by that kind of thing and just thought right okay, I'm going to sit and I am gong to listen and see what you have to say and they are talking about C#.Net, which is actually what I do as part of my day job, so it was like okay, I understand basically what you're saying anyway; so, where is the problem and he stopped, he said, so what are you into then, I said well I am into things like Binary watches and that kind of stuff, and he said, "You have a Binary watch, you're not marketing." (Inaudible) almost his face dropped and he almost went why, it was so funny and we talk about it now, we're really good friends but it was just so annoying that you just started with a (Inaudible).

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, what do you exactly; you said you were a software developer?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Yeah, I program software applications on the Window 'C' Platform using the .Net compact frameworks, versions one and two. I've pretty much done that straight out of university where I started off doing my ability programming.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, what's the project -- one of the projects that you are working on right now?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
I am not allowed to talk about it is under NDA, I work for an RD department at Cardinal Health so I work on medical devices that's about as much I can say about it and then it's cool, it's just fun and I guess working in that kind of industry you actually make a difference which is something that's fairly important me, being able to make a difference in an industry. The Girl Geek does this about making a difference in the environment and just getting more females into the industry in general and getting more girls through university on to the right courses to come up and do that stuff. It's just lots of fun and I think a lot more people should know about it and that how interesting and fun it is to go and do that stuff.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, you consider yourself a geek girl, right?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Yeah, and that's really because...

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Do you consider yourself a nerd?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
No, I don't have the nerdy tendencies, I actually have a social life and I have the interest in sports, in music, and arts and all those kind of things as well. So, I don't spent 24 hours a day sitting in front of computer being techie otherwise the girl geek wouldn't exist; so I couldn't possibly, possibly comment on that.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
So, what's the difference between a geek and a nerd?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
A Geek is someone with a passion for technology and into that technology and their technology area, and also has the social skills to be able to talk about the stuff and other things and has the interest outside of their technology area for example; whereas a nerd doesn't tend to have the social skills to go outside of their subject area, they generally are fairly, try and get the right word here, introvert rather than an extrovert. They will sit in front of their computer, they will write code all day, do it by night as well because they love doing it, they just have that passion but they don't move away from it; they don't go and try other things and see how the two things might interact or anything like that; they don't go an inch outside of their area, they just have real urge, it is real debt to themselves. I mean nerds are good -- I'd probably be a geek, it is quite simple.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Very cool, so geeks are cool and nerds are not; would you say that?

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
It could said like that, I mean it depends on whether you like to socialize or not I guess at the end of the day. I like socializing I like talking to my friend, I like going out and meeting new people; whereas I guess the slightly nerdier people just stay at home more often, they would rather stay with their family, get on and do their work that kind of stuff; it's not a negative thing, as far as it's just not as much fun. So, take that as you want.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Well, Sarah thank you for being with us today and sharing your passion about Girl Geek Dinners and software development, it's been fun taking to you and I hope that I'll see you in another Girl Geek Dinner hopefully, (Inaudible) in the area.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Did you have a go last night?

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Exactly.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
Yeah, and thank you for coming on.

Maryam Scoble - ScobleShow
Thank you and happy birthday.

Sarah Blow - London Girl Geek Dinners
That was a while ago; that was a little while ago.