Mavin Digital Mashup

We were instrumental in relaunching Girls in Tech’s online presence and the New York Chapter in September 2008 at the Web 2.0 Expo in New York. The launch in New York and our new website was celebrated by many which helped grow the membership base from 265 members on Facebook to over 2,000 todate. Before September 2008 Girls in Tech had zero online presence and zero tools for community engagement. There were no chapters outside of San Francisco with the exception of New York City. It all sounds great, so why stop now?

After over six months of working with Adriana Gascoigne it proved that we had a different vision for Girls in  Tech and very different work styles. Not setting goals and objectives in the beginning of a working relationship was an Achilles heel we failed to overcome. I am positive that Adriana had pure intentions when we had our conversation in August 2008 and convinced me (at that time I was contemplating on starting a networking group in NY independent of any existing organization) to be a co-Founder with 49% time equity share which I shared equally with @dma235 for her contributions on the creative and tech assets. Though after experiencing major delays from Adriana on producing a proper co-founder agreement, our different views on growing the organization (I preferred a focused grass roots expansion while she preferred rapid expansion in any place someone raised their hand to start a Girls in Tech Chapter), disagreement on blog management, SEO and social media tactics that I knew worked well as it showed in our traffic reports and many other irritations not worth mentioning – it proved challenging to work together. After failed attempts to communicate, on January 15, Adriana abruptly made the decision to redirect the Girls in Tech URL she owns from the former community site to the splash page you now see without proper notification nor transition to the New York bloggers and the entire community. My guess is as good as yours on why she made this decision without the appropriate transition and notification to our members. On the same day I received this email message from her “It is unfortunate that our partnership with Girls in Tech didn’t work out. I am sympathetic to the work that you put into the organization and can offer you 1.0% shares each.” Indeed it is unfortunate when efforts are recognized with insufficient funds.

Though this partnership failed, I intend to march forward with the experience and value I helped create and nurture with the tech and media community at large. My involvement gave me the opportunity to engage with some of the most creative, remarkable and talented men and women in the industry. I will continue my community contributions through this blog, future small gatherings, industry events, introducing startups with VCs who will find value in their business models and ideas, and a venture forum in New York which I will help lead and produce in the coming months (stay tuned for details!).

Gratitude and very much deserved acknowledgment for the support from all our members and specially the following individuals and organizations:

Finally, here’s a special registration page from one of the partnerships I nurtured and formed Gilt Group for ladies and gentlemen who love tech! It will be available for six months so pass it along!

Do you have a similar experience to share? I’d love to hear from you!

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Tags: Community, gilt group, girls in tech, post-mortem, Social Media, springboard enterprises, twitter

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm and is filed under Community, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.