2013-05-26T03:53:24-04:00 Rosie Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=rosie-rogers Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rosie Rogers Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1323495 2012-03-06T09:02:33-05:00 2012-05-06T05:12:01-04:00

Rosie Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosie-rogers/
Once you buy an iSomething, you have to buy compatible accessories, you can only buy certified apps, and you better hope water never meets your new baby so you don't have to kiss goodbye to your warranty. But they do look so good. A lifestyle lubricant for the 21st century, no self facilitating media node would be such a fashionable dickhead without one.

I am fully aware that they are well designed and technically brilliant machines. My boyfriend and I argue about this religiously. "Your life would be so much better if you had a Mac!" he wails.

My life would be so much better if people stopped telling me I need a Mac. You want doesn't equal I need. I now get introduced in social circles as 'The girl who hates Apple', which as you can imagine as a lively conversation opener as mentioning the BNP.

"Why do you hate Apple?! What's wrong with you?" I am met with a look of confusion and terror that I have seen many times before.

"I don't feel need to prove my importance by walking into Starbucks with an iPad under my arm. There are much less expensive ways to look like an idiot."

This comment is always generally agreed with. One person has once unashamedly confessed to me that he has stuck a Apple logo sticker over the top of a Dell logo to maximise his respect points.

"But you work in online? How can you do your job without working on a Mac?" This generalisation never fails to stagger me.

"I work perfectly fine on a PC thank you." This statement is always particularly hard to admit, as I do curse repeatedly about working on Windows.

But I would rather say this than rant for the next 10 minutes about how fast it is, or shown off my latest Scorsese digital masterpiece on Vimeo, or produced some sound that when processed through some digital synth sounds like an elephant farting, and before you know it I have had my ear bent on how I am totally wrong and they are very right. An unsuspecting loiterer (probably a mac user too, as they always hunt in packs) ask to join the conversation. "Rosie was just trying to convince me how PCs are better than Macs." Errrr, WRONG! I can't get a word in edgeways in between your big head and your even bigger Apple-shaped ego!

I know crap PCs can be, and I am not defending them. But when you buy an Apple product, you also buy a special pair of apple-tinted spectacles, that makes you believe that there is no other digital product worth having. I refuse to buy into that cult. They get cracked, they break, and they get bugs and viruses just like any other technological object.

It is also bad for people to assume that everyone else as bought into that cult. It's very painful for digital marketers to admit teenagers phone of choice is the BlackBerry for it's messaging system, not the iPhone. If people are creating content with one demographic in mind, they will run the risk of bypassing certain minorities and alienating in favour of another product that fits their needs better.

So in short, I probably will one day buy a Macbook Pro. When the market has bottomed out, the pricetag has been slashed in half, and the hipsters have levitated to the next big thing. But until then, show off your Apple love to someone else, cos this Apple-hater don't wanna know.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1215538 2012-01-22T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-23T05:12:01-04:00

Rosie Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosie-rogers/
Web Heroines, founded by successful web designer Keri Lambden in 2011, was set up to celebrate women working in the tech and design industries, bringing women together and inspiring others to work in the growing tech industry. Rather than criticise and point fingers at the restrictions, the group's aim is to showcase and celebrate achievements, sharing opinions, and then investigate potential solutions to the girl gap.

Emerge was a mini conference set up to start that very conversation. The three day event ran during the 16-18 January, starting with webinars by speakers from all over the world sharing their knowledge on a variety of subjects from SASS to juggling a freelancing and a day job, accumulating with a panel discussion in the British Library with four inspiring women all working in the industry. Julie Howell, confidently claimed that she 'invented social media' back in 1995 by setting up one of the world's first online communities; Jooly's Joint, and has won five awards for her influence on accessible design. Sarah McVittie co-founded Texperts, the world's first text message questioning service, which was sold to KGB in 2008 in a multi-million pound deal. She has since founded Dressipi, a 'contextually aware fashion recommendation system'. Sarah Parmenter started her business at 19, and is a completely self-taught UI designer and coder. An early adopter of designing for the iPhone/iPad, she regularly speaks at conferences both in the UK and abroad and recently won .net designer of the year award 2011. Jess Ratcliffe came up with the idea for her video game swapping website, gaboom, when she was just 15. She has recently appeared on Dragon's Den, and has recently re-launched the website.

The first question posed is was one on all of our lips; why are there so few women working in tech and design? Confidence is felt to be the main issue. Julie Howell said there is the talent but people are just not coming forward. Women need to adopt more of an 'headphones off' method of working, by talking and sharing ideas with other people and not hiding away. Sarah McVittie agreed and said there are not enough women role models in the industry, more needs to be done to inspire other young women, and as an entrepreneur you have a responsibility to educate others. The panel agreed that there is less of a gender difference in the workplace these days, and women should embrace that they are better at different things, such as nurturing and being empathetic, all qualities of fantastic leaders. As more gender specific products are being built with women in mind, this will hopefully encourage more women into the industry. Sarah Parmenter even said that sometimes being a woman has played to her advantage when winning contracts, such as her work for Breast Cancer UK, and women should not be afraid of playing this to their advantage.

The topic of self confidence kept popping up through the hour long talk, with the panel agreeing that having bags of it and the passion for your idea can be a real driver for your work, but lacking self esteem and even listening to social media backlash can put some on the backfoot. The real issue isn't that women are lacking talent, but they lack the self-confidence to continue with their ideas. The best thing to do to combat this is to put yourself out there, be it through teaching, mentoring or even taking part in conferences, which will not only boost your own confidence, but will also help inspire others. Emerge was a successful event, and hopefully this is the start of many more conversations to get more women into the tech sphere.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1104741 2011-11-21T05:09:22-05:00 2012-01-20T05:12:01-05:00

Rosie Rogers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rosie-rogers/ The Sunday Times yesterday, with 20% of people hoping one of the presents under the tree this Christmas is a tablet or an e-reader.

They had better keep dreaming. The average spend on the other half this year will be £61, and almost one in six will be choosing not to buy their partner a present, while another 6% of people will be shopping for a gift that is under £10. This is going to be a very austere Christmas, as the cuts will find us looking to even save the pennies in the Christmas Pudding.

It's true that more people are turning to, and increasingly relying on, new technologies in everyday life, with one in four people already owning a tablet or e-reader. But there are still a great deal of people that lack a technological grasp, with 16% of the population who don't know what HD stand for. There is a group clearly being left behind as we stampede through into the 21st Century with increasing technological prowess. And as gadgetry gets more expensive and elusive, more will probably get left behind too, and the technology gap will widen even more. But there is a piece of tech that can sometimes be overlooked as the bridge of the technology gap. Video Games.

Lets look at the Top 10 gadgets for 2011 in The Sunday Times tech list. Gaming runs through the entire list. Only two gifts in the top 10 came under the average friend and family spend of £37, including bugdetastic Arcade Nano Sonic which allows you play two Sonic the Hedgehog titles and Alex Kidd through your TV. There's Laser Guns, Skate/Surfboards and giant Lego kits for the kids and kidults alike. I expect the eBay marketplace to be flooded with Angry Birds iPhone Speaker docks, the obvious joke present from the most popular game of the year. Gamification is even present in the most expensive item on the list, GPS Ski Googles that track and record your location for off-piste personal analysis.

It's not the tablet trend that will be the hottest commodity this Christmas, as the research and the tablet price tags suggest. With 79% of people already owning a games console, it's gaming that will be getting the family together this Christmas, with a new game fitting nicely inside the £37 average friend and family spend. It may not be a revolutionary Christmas, but gaming will be the best tech that people will know, and undoubtedly the most accessible.]]>