How Beyond the Code Attendees Found Their Spark with Anita's Quilt

Recently, Shopify put on a super cool conference called Beyond the Code.  Hosted at the Ottawa Convention Centre, the event's main goal was to highlight the role of women in technology.  All types of folks were there,  from devs to designers — and the audience was more than half female!

I was lucky enough to run a lunchtime workshop called Find Your Spark with Anita's Quilt.  Some of my fellow Quilters developed this workshop, so I had a good base to start from.  The general layout we used was to sort people into tables as they came in (we used chocolates!), then have them introduce themselves to their table mates, pick and read a story from the Find Your Spark! page, and  talk about the stories using the discussion questions we provided them (now also on the Find Your Spark! page).  After the discussion, we had a few tables share their biggest takeaways (there wasn't enough time to go through all tables let alone all questions).

It was an enjoyable way to spend lunch and meet some new people, but the thing I was most excited for was to hear what the participants actually got out of reading the stories.  I have been working hard to curate a lot of the great content on Anita's Quilt, so of course I wanted to know whether it has been meaningful and even useful to readers.

I was really impressed with the insights that came out of the discussion.  A few key issues were brought up:

• One group noticed the prevalence of the imposter syndrome, that feeling you get that makes you think you don't deserve to be where you are and that everybody's going to find out any day now.
• Another group pointed out that a lot of the stories are about how somebody corrected course when their life got back on track.  Realizing this allows the reader to see how others did in case they ever face the same situation.
• The fear of failure was a big theme.  That lead to discussion on the importance of a support network of friends, family, and mentors/sponsors that can help you lose the fear of failing.
• The last group brought up the issue of the kind of language women tend to use, and how it often portrays less confidence, or attributes success to factors outside of their own good work.

It's almost as though we went through a checklist of common issues facing women in tech!

If all this sounds intriguing to you, or you could just use a really good story to get inspired, be sure to check out the Anita's Quilt Story Campaigns archive,  or follow the Find Your Spark! model to choose a story and think about the discussion questions.  Let me know what you get out of the stories you read!