Dear Avery,
I’ve been a “SEO” analyst for 3 years now. My first conference around Search Marketing was attending MozCon in Seattle 3 year ago. I was late on Day 1 due to a cancelled flight, and was trying to meet up with my boss and coworker (both males under 40). My boss texted me “Come to the lunch hall, we are both in flannel shirts.”
I remember walking into a room of hundreds of people. Scratch that. Hundreds of MEN. And it just so happened, hundreds of men wearing either flannel or checkered shirt and Chuck Taylor shoes. It took me a good 10 minutes to find my boss!
{What in the world} Is this a joke? Why are there only 10 women in this room?
And why did they all look like this?!? >>>>>>>>>>>>
Full disclosure.. I’m wasn’t mad at it. 🙂
This was my first true experience walking into a room full of industry colleagues. And boy, was I outnumbered. It was a tad overwhelming, but then, I also realized how cool it was to be a young woman in a profession made up of mostly men. Bring something different to space — I thought to myself. Speak up and push the envelope.
Fast forward to my 3rd conference — 3 years later (which was today at SearchLove). The conference had already begun, and I only saw two young women (roughly my age, and also similar fashion sense) walk into the room. My first thought, “this must not be the right place!” Ha!
And to my surprise, I walked into the room that was about 50/50 women and men!
I think it’s so rad to experience this relatively young profession evolve in such a short time period. Young blood. New perspective. Incredibly smart and passionate people who genuinely support each other. They’ve shared their successes, their failures, their learnings, and given up their secrets on how they help people find useful content on the internet.
Aves, I hope that whatever you end up doing for your profession — that you surround yourself with smart and passionate people. Learn from them. Teach them what you know. Glean skills from them. Network with people outside you own company. And if you are the only girl in the room — OWN IT. And show them what you are made of!
If you wanted to know how I got into marketing, check out my post from 2012: “Career Woman: Part 2“. I will always love this story of how it came to be! 🙂
With love,
Aunt Megs
With Love, Aunt Megs 