Today I attended Day One of a mid-sized, two-day technology conference sponsored by a business analyst group. I was sent by my company’s C-level folks to be their “eyes and ears” (read: note-taker). Not being told to be a “mouth,” I kept quiet in the back of the basement ballroom of the glitzy harborside hotel, listening to presentations and taking notes (a highlight: A Microsoft executive discussed acquiring start-ups like most people talk about buying shirts.)
The crowd was 90% men between the ages of 35 and 50… a real power crowd, fueled by buffets of refreshment food, an endless stream of beverages, and a lavish lunch. (Tomorrow I’ll hide tupperware in my purse.) It wasn’t until the cocktail hour that people asked me the question I’d been dreading all day: “What do you do?” I smiled mysteriously and claimed “They haven’t invented a title for what I do.”
Indeed, I felt mysterious all day. I stuck out. The bartender called me “Young lady” twice, and not in that “humoring a golden girl” sort of way. As one of the few women under forty, and the only blond, I got more than a few curious stares, and was evidently sized up as being not important enough to talk to except in the presence of cocktails. Wink wink. That’s my value proposition.
