I realised that I was spending all this time trying to think about how to engage women with technology, and I was ignoring the fact they already were. They were essentially already video editors, graphic designers, community managers. They were teaching each other CSS to make their tumblr themes look more gorgeous, and they were using Chrome extensions in anger to make tumblr do what they wanted. These were basically front end developers, social media managers, they were absolutely immersed in technology, every day, and we weren’t paying attention, because they were doing it in service of something we don’t care about.

Sacha Judd, How The Tech Sector Could Move In One Direction. Presented at Beyond Tellerrand, Berlin, November 2016.

A really interesting look at fannish engagement with technology. Covers many topics, from the AO3 to fanworks and activism by Larry fans to Pinboard. We know many fans are good at technology, but it’s fascinating to read about it from the perspective of someone whose goals are a) to convince tech companies that (female) fans make great employees, and b) offer those companies concrete pointers on how to attract fans to their job postings.

(via fanhackers)