WOMEN IN TECHRADIO AND TWITTER SERIES BY NPR’S TELL ME MORE

For all of March 2014, NPR’s Tell Me More has been talking to women entrepreneurs, innovators, coders and engineers about their work. We've been talking on NPR and Twitter about why women still represent a small fraction of science and tech workers.

Women digital thinkers from around the world have shared over 7,900 tweets since March 3rd, as part of “A Day in the Life” on Twitter using the hashtag #NPRWIT. The conversations have generated mil-lions of impressions globally from Ghana to India and from Indonesia to the United Kingdom but 84% of the conversations have taken place in the US with 39% in CA, 11% in NY and 5% in MI.

#NPRWIT STATS & IMPACT BY DAVAR ARDALAN

Day In The Life on Twitter:

Every day since March 3rd, women digital thinkers have been tweeting a day in their life from 10am to 4pm ET. Throughout the day, in addition to tweeting about their regular work day using #NPRWIT, they have also answered questions posed by @TellMeMoreNPR. We have curated all these on Storify.

The women have engaged in vibrant conversations with each other and shared their thoughts on eve-rything from how to raise tech producers, to why so few startups are founded by women to ways to counter sexism in the tech industry. They have also been tweeting photos, sharing links to their work and exchanging ideas on how best to get girls involved in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. The response to this radio and social storytelling series has been remark-able.

#NPRWIT TWITTER STATS for the week of March 18-22, 2014:

The social tracking website Keyhole.co shows 778 posts with a reach of over 860,000. Reach, is the number of unique followers that a user has. That same week, #NPRWIT saw over 4 million impres-sions on Twitter, that is the number of times the hashtag appeared in posts.

And although 84% of the conversation happened in the US, primarily California (39%) New York (11%) and Michigan (5%), the Twitter chats went global from Ghana to India, Indonesia, Philip-pines, Thailand, Ecuador, France, UK, Estonia and Brazil.

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The demographics around #NPRWIT show 75% women and 25% men.

Most influential, besides the NPR branded accounts, include @NoramayC (Founder of @Latinasin-STEM) @ReshmaSaujani (Founder of @GirlsWhoCode) Stephani Page @ThePurplePage (of #BLACKSandSTEM), @Leila_C (Founder of @SamaSource) Joyce Davis @enjoyceinglife (of Spel-man College) & @christinecelise (Founder of @Diversitech).

"A  HELPFUL  OUTCOME  OF  #NPRWIT  FOR  ME  HAS  BEEN  LEARNING  ABOUT  THE  BREADTH  OF  DIVERSITY  OF  WOMEN  IN  TECH  AND  THE  IMPACT  THEY  ARE  HAVING.  IT'S  GREAT  TO  HEAR  ABOUT  THE  STRATEGIES  FOR  SUCCESS  THEY'RE  IMPLEMENTING,  INCLUDING  RESOURCES,  

ORGANIZATIONS  AND  EVEN  COPING  MECHANISMS  FOR  THE  DISCRIMINATION  THEY'RE  FACING."  

-­‐  JOYCE  DAVIS  ASSOCIATE  DIRECTOR,  PUBLICATIONS  SPELMAN  COLLEGE  ATLANTA,  GA  

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#NPRWIT on Tell Me More with Michel Martin and NPR.ORG:

The women in tech conversations aren’t just happening online.  On the radio, Host Michel Martin has had six distinct conversations around women in tech and during and after each one we have promoted our Twitter series.

Lyndsey Scott: Runway Model and Tech Programmer March 20, 2014: Victoria's Secret and Prada model Lyndsey Scott designs apps in her spare time. She talks about what drew her to computer sci-ence for Tell Me More's "Women in Tech" series.

How Parents Are Leading The Revolution For Girls In Tech March 18, 2014: Tell Me More learns differ-ent ways parents can integrate science and tech into their families from math professor Rachel Levy, her daughter Mimi Kome, and educational technologist Iman Saint Jean.

Nigeria’s First Female Finance Minister: Still Big Problems In Soaring Economy March 12, 2014: Nige-ria is set to overtake South Africa as the continent's biggest economy. Tell Me More looks at that growth with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the country's first female Finance Minister.

Investing In Women Entrepreneurs March 11, 2014: Tell Me More looks at how to connect investors to women-owned businesses. Indiegogo co-founder Danae Ringelmann and Pipeline Fellowship's Na-talia Oberti Noguera share their ideas.

Global Insight On Drawing Girls To Tech March 6, 2014: Tell Me More looks at strategies being used to encourage more young women to enter tech fields in the US, and what the international community is doing differently — for better and worse.

To Get More Women In Tech, Start At Home And School March 3, 2014: Tell Me More celebrates Women's History Month with the series "Women in Tech." Diverse voices will share ideas on bridging the gender gap in tech fields. The series begins with two startup founders.

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Women in tech share their thoughts on #NPRWIT social storytelling:

"So I've participated in twitter chats before and this felt significantly less like preaching to the choir be-cause, I think, it was hosted by a news organization. I think the audience that it attracted are inherently curious; about the world, about lived experiences, about the culture we're building and how to make it better." Sabrina Hersi Issa @beingbrina Leads @beboldmedia & Co-Director @NewsDisruptors

"One of my favorite quotes is 'We are what we celebrate' - a news organization has the ability to cele-brate the positive changes and progress we want to see in the world. #NPRWIT was a fantastic cele-bration of women in tech sharing their "day in the life" on Twitter, I really enjoying showing the elec-tronic designs I was working on, the Adafruit factory on New York City and introducing some of the women who also work at Adafruit" - Limor Fried, Founder and Engineer @adafruit

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more... WOMEN IN TECH ON #NPRIWT"When a respected, national show like Tell Me More invests this type of time and energy in a topic like women in tech-nology, it elevates the conversation and the individuals involved. Many times, these communities already exist organi-cally in the social space but their networks my not be connected and the media is not engaging in a meaningful way. This type of storytelling not only provides opportunities for women across the world to learn from and support one an-other through social networks - it also creates a groundswell that validates the importance of the work they are already doing and the platform for an ongoing dialogue." - Michelle Srbinovich Co-General Manager WDET 101.9 FM De-troit, MI

"It's not a coincidence that the community engaged by #NPRWIT sparked @techsistas, which was launched by Nicole Sanchez, Managing Partner at Kapor Center for Social Impact...  #TechSistas is a network of  "Latinas, Black, and Na-tive American women in tech" coming together with the goals of supporting each other and increasing visibility.  Here's to mainstreaming #TechSistas and #NPRWIT!" - Natalia Oberti Noguera of Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women

"It's great to have social platforms like Google+ and Twitter where we can share our thoughts and connect with others about important issues like increasing the number of women in tech. It’s really empowering to hear the stories of other women in the field and helps the cause gain mind share. NPR is doing great work in bringing women together and starting a conversation." - Molly Mackinlay @momack28 @Google Product Manager

"Sharing my day as a tech executive for the #NPRWIT series was both humbling and exciting-to be able to contribute to such an ambitious and important project is definitely a career highlight for me! Social campaigns like #NPRWIT are a great way to draw attention to the ongoing need to engage more girls and women in STEM education and careers. Through social media, we can connect with other women in technology to share ideas and support one another, as well as connect with younger women who need role models and encouragement. More importantly, we can create awareness across our broader personal networks to help ensure parents, educators and other influential adults think about the STEM fields as career possibilities for young women, then encourage the girls they know to explore all the options." - Yvonne Schneider @AmexTechnology Senior Vice President at American Express

"The NPR Women In Tech Twitter Chat was an eye-opening experience on two levels – the work it takes to fully en-gage on Twitter and the many levels of exchange within social media! As the day progressed, you began to see and feel the impact of this web of people connecting under a common thread (Women in Technology) which visually was like seeing the red lines on a map connecting us at rapid speed. At the end of the day, it was was overwhelming! I have been able to create new opportunities for growth within technology and STEM because of this social storytelling campaign. This idea of social storytelling has made my social media interaction more strategic and engaging. Now I have seen a whole other side of how social media can really be an effective communication tool beyond the “social” aspect. I had heard this but now I’ve seen it and I’m hooked!" - Carletta Hurt Educator and Youth Advocate @Carlet-taHurt

"As stats around the gender gap in STEM become more widely visible, it is crucial that we hear the about the chal-lenges and opportunities directly from women -- the NPRWIT initiative allows us to share first hand insight about what it's like to be in tech. I enjoyed the opportunity to share my work and to learn about other women doing great work across the country." - Noramay Cadena, @Noramayc Aerospace engineer @Boeing Co-Founder @LatinasinSTEM

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Our #NPRWIT Twitter & Radio series comes after a very successful social storytelling campaign in De-cember around #NPRBlacksinTech. 

#SocialStorytelling around #NPRBlacksinTech

In December, we had over 13,000 Tweets around #NPRBlacksinTech and millions of impressions on Twitter. The top countries outside of the U.S. were Canada, Thailand and Ecuador. The biggest influ-encers around the hashtag, outside of the NPR branded accounts, were @diradiocast, @nextgenra-dio, and @christinecelise.#NPRBlacksinTech saw a larger tweet per day volume which Twitter experts attribute to the conversa-tion nature of African-American Twitter users who as an audience tweet more frequently and at a higher volume and also the combined influence of the participants in the hashtag. We have also learned based on these campaigns that photos and videos do particularly well on Twitter. We have en-couraged our Twitter contributors to share visual content to increase engagement. Please let us know if you have any questions.  

Where do we go from here:

Through these social storytelling Day in the Life campaigns we are reaching new audiences and en-gaging in ways that reflect the integrity of our brand – it’s incredibly exciting. We plan to continue our look at the gender gap in tech through bimonthly Twitter chats and engaging member stations. You can join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag #NPRWIT and email your ideas to tellmemore@npr.org.

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