How to date a geek girl (my #barcampevn11 presentation)

This is the presentation and slide notes for my BarCamp EVN'11 talk.

A certain person, who considers himself as ‘definitely not a geek’, inspired me to start writing a blog post about this, which was never finalized and published before this… but while i was trying to chose a presentation topic for this barcamp, and had two serious topics in mind, well… 2 days ago i had this “tadaaa” moment and that was it :) i’m here.
So .. well.. i have to say.. I’m a geek. A tech-savvy, gadgets dependent, spending tremendous amount of time being connected. There’s also a term – wired.

So i’ll be telling some insights on this topic from my own experience… a little bit spiced, however ;)
Just one thing before i start – you have to promise not to use any of these tips against me, okay?


These tips might be particularly useful for non-geeks as they give some perspective from an actual geek girl.
They will particularly work if the girl has some initial interest in you, or at least nothing against.

1. Subscribe and Follow

Geek girls, probably not everyone, but of the type i’m gonna tell you about, are quite accessible. Meaning, they are easily reachable via some social networks, have quite a noticeable online presence. Like if you google their name, you’ll get at least couple of pages of results for her profiles, blog posts, comments etc.

One of the first things you should do is - if she has a blog – definitely subscribe to it. Find her on social networks, get on to the messenger she’s using and start friending.. but not in all places at once. Note: if you’re not on any of those popular networks, you should seriously consider signing up for them, that will significantly ease the job ;)

Start exploring her online personality.. her likes and dislikes.. chances are, you’ll get pretty much informed on how she spends her days, what does she do in life, etc.. 

If you’re still interested in her after discovering her online personality… then you should start... interacting.

2. Interact

Write comments. Carefully pick when and where to comment so that you don’t annoy. Learn the netiquette and some basic ethics of online communicaton in those networks.. that’s why it’s important to observe a little bit before you act. .. so my advice here is.. don’t like or comment her every post :) or write messages like these:

3. Find her

Ok third.. find her. I mean find out where she hangs out. If you’re lucky enough to be mutually friended with her in Foursquare, then you’ll know when she hangs out in the evenings, her favorite spots.. you’ll find the good time to join her. If you’re lucky to be authorised to see her location any moment via google latitude.. that means wow.. she must really like you. You get bonus points for that :)

So basically, she'll appreciate a msg like- "r u still in Segafredo? can i join you? of course if i won't disturb".

And again here, you have to know the limits.. you’ll learn them from her reaction actually.

..and by the way, couple of words about privacy. If you find out that she has started being online for you in Facebook chat, that must be that she added you to her some kind of “online for chat” friends list. By the things that are accessible for you in her profile, you can guess how much she trusts you.. if she’s a real geek, she has to have multiple friends lists with custom privacy settings, so if you see all pictures she’s tagged in, all her wall posts, profile info.. you have pretty good chances ;)

4. Be nice

Find things that you can do that make her happy. Geek girls are not that kind of ones you can achieve by sending the standard flowers, inviting for a classic café dates.. if you notice that she’s very picky for details.. try not to do spelling mistakes when typing. That can annoy her :)

You can send her offline messages by the way.. and long emails are still trendy :)

Just don’t be too sticky.

5. Don't be always on

While you might be refreshing her wall once in every hour, checking her tweets and statuses in messengers, don’t show that you’re constantly dying to get a message from her. Make her miss you and she’ll be contacting you herself. But don’t also make her feel so it’s just her that always writes first :)

6. Be informed

Try to discuss the latest tech news with her.. like facebook’s new feature, or google… but try not to argue much :)

If you know that she’s an Android-er.. chances are that she hates everything about the “fruit” company and iPhones. Don’t bring that neverending “Android vs. iPhone” topic up :) 

If you made a gadget/app choice because of her advice – let her know about it. You’ll get your plus points :)

7. Don't play too much

You know what games i mean :) don’t leave her uncertain about your feelings and intentons for a long while. She might get pissed and take some steps. Like writing a kinda pissedoff letter, then publishing it in her blog :)

I know this list is not comprehensive and there’s still a lot to say and a geek girls can be very different… so in the end i want to give some bonus advices in case things don’t work with her after all :) or maybe you weren't meant to be together actually.

So “how to remove someone from your (digital) life” (without burning bridges, going brutal like unfriending) 

1. Limit the accesses - -put her in limited profile friends list, so that they don’t see your activities etc, and also hide them from your newsfeed as well. The less you get reminded of the failure, the faster you get over it.
2. Untag from the pics that had you once connected..
3. Disable notifications for checkins in Foursquare
4. Hide/remove/block from messengers
5. Filter the emails (so they are marked as read and archived)
6. Delete her number from quick contacts, or just remove from contact lists at all, in case you get drunk and want to text..
7. … if all this doesn't work – simply do the inevitable:

• Delete all old emails and get rid of their email address (clear it from the "autofill" in your email)
• Delete their number out of your phone
• Unfriend them on all social networking sites
• Block/Delete them on your messengers

Good luck! :)

Here's the presentation file:

 

p.s. a tip from @netcrash - buy her a domain name if she doesn't have one already :)

if you have comments or more tips, write here in the comments, i'll update the post with them :)

update 1: Lusine Barseghyan has translated my post into Russian, thanks, Lusine! :)
update 2: My presentation went viral and became top presentation of the day/week and most tweeted on Slideshare! THANKS everyone! :)))

BarCamp EVN '10 impressions and pics

My geekiest weekend of the year is over. It felt like a different reality to me. I was surrounded mainly by like-minded people who were so nice and geeky :)

I was enjoying seeing familiar faces, friends and getting to know new people. Of course, there were some people who were making me to seek the "report spammer" link, but i was trying to be tolerant :D

BarCamp is all about learning and networking (as most of the conferences), but what is good here, it's that there are no strict rules and the atmosphere is relaxed and pleasant.

thanks to photobzik for pics :)

The biggest shortcoming of this format for me is that because of parallel tracks - presentations taking places in different rooms at the same time - you have to make choices on what to hear and what to miss all the time.

Being a curious personality made me find an interesting topic in every half-hour track so in the end i was very exhausted.

While last year I was just a participant, this year I decided to present something myself. It's a great opportunity to train the public speaking and presentation skills. I'm so thankful for all the people that approached me with a feedback. It's invaluable!

photo by Sedrak Mkrtchyan / PanARMENIAN Photo

On the first day me and my friend Yervand made a presentation entitled "Geolocation Fun" that was about geolocation in general and Foursquare in particular. (find the PPT link below)

The room was very crowded and I was excited that some people actually downloaded the app right there and started to use Foursquare :). And also many people, whom i didn't know were approaching and saying that they liked my presentation :))) It felt great!

That night, when i was unable to sleep, I was planning my next presentation on Sunday. Right before the sleep i got the idea that I should present my "thing" on internal communication in companies and newsletters. I had a very few time to prepare, however I was feeling confident still everything was already in my head and i had already written a detailed blog post about it.

Even though I didn't have much time to prepare, it was good too :)

While I did my first presentation as @arpik, the second one was by Arpiné Grigoryan / PanARMENIAN Media (this is how it was written in the schedule). I was pleasantly surprised hearing that people came to hear a presentation because it was PanARMENIAN involved :) some even thought it was just about PanARMENIAN.Net :D

I really encourage all IT-related people to attend BarCamps since there's always lots of learning and networking. Not only you see meaningful faces of promising young people, you can actually watch for potential employees.

I really can't understand how anybody in IT wouldn't go there or thing that it's "useless". First of all it's a great platform to showcase new projects/services. Besides it's a great place to train presentation skills :)

Here are the links to my presentations:

• Geolocation Fun
• Newsletter as an internal communication tool

Presentations will be soon put on the barcamp.am website together with the links to articles and blog posts about BarCamp and photoalbums.

More pics below.

BarCamp EVN '10, for all the geeks out there!

I was just going to write about the upcoming BarCamp EVN, but decided to check my last year's post first :) Turns out I've described it pretty well then, and there's almost nothing new to add :D

This year i actually have my contribution in the organization.

Besides, i'm going to make a presentation this year and hope to see you all in the audience. You know, i'm still in the process for collecting experience for public speaking and I need your support and feedback :)

This year there will be 4 simultaneous tracks and still no breaks :)

There will also be livestreaming from all 4 BarCamp halls (hope the internet will be good enough :)

Don't forget to check the #barcampevn10 hashtag, there will be live-tweeting during the whole event. Hope this year there will be more of us tweeting :))

RSVP to the FB event and don't forget to register on the website.

There will be an afterparty at the Lovers Park and more opportunities for socializing :)) 

Btw, on Saturday Armen Grigoryan is inviting for "Innovative Talks" in Lovers Park which is definitely worth checking out and participating in :))

BarCamp EVN '09 -- my impressions

BarCamp is a “non-conference” in the sphere of information technology, new media and Internet. A “non-conference” is the unofficial, informal part of the conference supporting open discussions and a free exchange of ideas and opinions.

“BarCamp Yerevan” brought together bloggers, new media professionals, IT specialists, companies involved in Internet and digital technologies, journalists and journalism students, as well as many other groups interested in using technology and Internet in their work.

barcamp.am

BarCamp is a place where everybody can participate for free and hold a presentation on any topic connected with IT, even partly connected :)


There were about 400 people registered on the website, i don't know how many people actually visited it. I saw many people appearing just for the second day, as it was Sunday (this Saturday was a working day in Armenia).

There were 3 simultaneous tracks of presentations in different rooms.
It was pity since we were physically unable to participate in all the interesting sessions. There were no breaks, and in order to grab a coffee, you should skip some session.

I loved it for several reasons:

1. presentations were 30 mins at maximum, plus no obligation :) you could skip from one room to another if it was boring or uninteresting.
2. there were already some active twitterers on BarCamp and I was refreshing my twitter page on mobile to see what is going on in other rooms. The hashtag #barcampevn09 was helping to search for all barcampers who were on twitter :)
3. it was a great opportunity to meet old friends, colleagues and fellows from online communities, recover contacts, get to know people whom you knew only by nicknames.
4. it was useful for networking, socializing, setting up important business contacts.
5. getting a discount for iCON wimax internet. i don't know if i'm going to use it yet :)
6. i saw and had touched (:D) a nabaztag ! I love these creatures and was dreaming to see one live since i first heard about it years ago.  
7. it was useful for seeing projects and companies in faces, like: 
• presentation of "Prosperous Armenia party"'s online PR tools, 
• presentations of banks.am, itel.am, auto.am and their monetization options
  
• Macadamian company
8. For me, personally, it was also interesting to discover and meet some of my readers (hi folks! :) 
 

I generally like IT people and tech geeks since they are interesting to me :) (and i am one of them), and as they are generally not so communicative in real life, they are more open and active in places where there are more people like them who speak their 'language'. BarCamp did a great job for bringing these people together and uncovering those who were hiding behind their online nicknames and roles.

Some of the presenters badly lacked presentation skills, others were causing heavy debates bringing everything to politics.

Somehow i didn't feel like making a presentation, although i was constantly having lots of ideas of possible topics i could present and i couldn't choose :D Next time - for sure ! Those of you who know me, also know how enthusiastic i am on making a session or presentation, especially on IT topics :)

Presentations i liked:

• Areg Maghakian told us how it was to work for Facebook. He had worked there in the early years of its development
• Grizli aka Grisha was telling about the techniques of picking up girls online, especially on odnoklassniki
• Maksym Savanevsky from Ukraine was making an overview on Obama's online PR campaign.
• Антикризисная реклама by casualmente
  

People whom I have seen online and met thanks to the BarCamp: @netcrash, @ditord, @kornelij, @ahousekeeper, @jesirobendebua, @reporter_arm, blansh :)

BarCamp closed with an afterparty at Armeda club. Finally there was some time to freely socialize without missing any session :)

My friend Tata, who is actually an artist and has nothing to do with IT also enjoyed the atmosphere of the BarCamp and pointed out smth i didn't notice before she said it: people that were there for socializing and meeting each other face-to-face, were still so much busy spending the time buried into their notebooks and smartphones twееting, updating statuses and blogs :D

...and by the way, I went into a little melancholy meeting a lot of nice young IT people who were still studying, and had a lot of things ahead... and felt myself a little more older, hehe :D no, no, i admit that there were people much older than me.. i wonder if they felt the same :D (or is it me looking for something to get depressed about :D)

Here are some photos by me:

BarCamp Yerevan

and at last... 

 

me at the BarCamp (by Gaspar)

More photos by Gaspar: Day 1, Day 2, by konteck, on Facebook by Lusin Paravyan, by 10098, and a video by reporter_arm

and check twitter for #barcampevn09 ;)

and in also you can google "barcampevn09" to find out more on the event.