Doris Robinson aged 19 in 1920

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. Ada Lovelace wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented.

To paraphrase from the Ada Lovelace Day website, women in science and technology tend to be less well known than their male counterparts despite their valuable contributions. The aim of Ada Lovelace Day is to focus on building female role models not just for girls and young women but also for those of us who would like to feel that we are not alone in our endeavours. Psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones, so the idea of creating these role models is not just some airy-fairy idea, but based on a real need.

In support of Ada Lovelace Day I have signed the pledge and am blogging about Doris Ophir Robinson, a woman who inspired me to pursue a career rather than (or as well as) to be a wife and mother (though I am now both). You can read my blog post over on the Birds on the Blog Website:

Doris Ophir Robinson (1901- 1973)

Find out more at Finding Ada

As you know I’ve been writing about architects here for nearly a year, and sometimes I’ve strayed off topic a bit.

One of my favourite alternative topics of choice is networking, particularly networking online, and this became the subject of my talk to the RIBA in October.

Now occasionally taking your blog off topic is fine, but it was getting in the way of my architect-related writing, so I’ve decided to let you off the networking online stuff and take it over to my new blog, Just Professionals.

If you’d like to stick around here and talk more about what architects could do better, great! I will be. And if you want to know more about how to network online better as a professional, then please join me over at Just Professionals too. The site also has a twitter account where I will be tweeting blog posts and tips about twitter and other networking tools.

These are my Delicious Links for July 8th through July 14th:

• Tellytubby land: BedZed revisited – Building – An excellent review of the 'Zero Energy Housing' scheme by ZedFactory which is 7 years old.
  Some particularly interesting comments about the user experience.
  Whatever happened to BedZed – where are all the followup schemes?
• I Love Delicious Because It’s Selfish – MMMeeja Blog –
  We are being selfish and it’s powerful.
  It’s powerful because it’s also open. If can identify a thought-leader in a given and he has a delicious account, I can see which sites he thinks are important enough to save for later reference.
  This is very similar to my twitter philosophy of “follow interesting people” (stolen, I think, from Robert Scoble).
• Opus Building Services – the Essential Sourc eof practical information for Building Services Engineers – Welcome to OPUS Building Services, our free database of detailed building services product and supplier information – including contact details, images, case studies and product catalogues.
• 5 ways to win with virtual teams: Remote Aspect : from a ‘virtual’ world – Commerce these days is increasingly becoming resourced by distributed teams of smaller highly specialised providers. This relatively new model of doing business can, if properly utilised, provide high quality services at affordable prices to even the smallest company and also allow the growth of leaner – most robust and recession-resilient businesses.

  Here is a checklist of areas that should be considered when starting project work with external providers as 'virtual' team members. By following these simple guidelines you will ensure the highest chances of hassle-free relationships and timely deliver of contracted work and therefore progress of your business objectives.

• 17 types of posts to strengthen your business blog @ Better Business Blogging – One of the key worries that businesses have as they start to develop their blog is what to write about and how best to communicate their messages across to their readers. Effectively, what sort of posts they should write. Well, posts can take many shapes and forms according to the author’s inclination and the readers’ preferences – I think the skill comes in matching the two as closely as possible.

  To help the process, here’s a list of 17 possible types of posts that you could look at to develop the conversation on your business blog. They won’t all be relevant for every blog but they should help to spark some ideas on ones that would be most applicable for you.

One thing I like so much about online networking is the way unexpected things can happen.

One minute you find yourself wondering…
”when am I going to get round to that…?”
and someone offers –
“I’ve done it – would you like a copy?”

Today was one of those days. I finally sorted out a draft document for someone, finally started setting up the new blog, finally got the goahead to do some other exciting things. But inbetween many people did things for me, just because I wondered aloud.

Today I’ve

1. Been offered an introduction to a very influential person in my client group;
2. Learned some great family news and shared it with some special friends – which led to other initiatives;
3. Mentioned I’m going to a networking event, to find at least three other people I’ve been hoping to meet for the first time are going too, and one of them will do a live stream of the event for us;
4. Signed up my first guest blog post. All because I wondered aloud. Boy am I excited!

So Next Time

When you meet someone new, don’t think, “how can I get that person to…” but “how can I get to know this person?”

What have you got in common?
What does the other person need?
Do you know someone (or does someone you know, know someone) who might need to fulfill that need?

If you can bring such people together you are a Connector.

And if you can connect people, they will connect you too.

And next time you’re wondering… wonder aloud. Perhaps someone will hear your need and respond.

Just a quick note to let you know we are working on a new theme for my blog, one that is more useable, readable, clickable etc.

There will be a few more changes as we get it right. Thanks for your patience.

Not too long ago a large group of my online networking colleagues said to me, ‘why don’t you have a blog?’

Then last week one of my face-to-face networking associates said to me, ‘you should give us a 10 minute presentation – your profession is one of the most difficult businesses to understand’.

So here it is. A blog about architects.

There are three things I want to do with this blog, things I have been doing elsewhere on the internet for some years but in a pretty unco-ordinated way it must be said.

Firstly, I want to help explain what it is that architects can do, what they are good at (and not so good at), how you can use them to get where you want to be with your property, and of course, what they should be doing differently.

Secondly, I’m a bit of a networking nut and very keen on using the internet for networking, so I’m taking the opportunity to investigate how the construction industry is and is not using the internet, so there will be plenty of opinionated posts about that too.

Lastly, I’d like to ask the people who read this for your suggestions on what I should blog about. If you know me already you might have some ideas, and if you don’t, take a look at what I’ve got to say and let me know what’s missing. In good networking parlance, if I don’t know myself, I can find out who does.

Hope you like it!