Sisterhood Is Digital

IWT is by far Borg's most ambitious and far-reaching endeavor. Its premise is simple -- and urgent: How can it be that "technology changes everything" (a rallying cry among those who champion all things digital) when a majority of the population has little or no say in how technology evolves? "What if," Borg asks, "only 30-year-old women developed technology -- all of it -- and that technology was geared mainly for 13-year-old girls? Technology would be out of whack, out of balance. But that's the world we live in: Men hold the power, and boys drive the market."

Her conclusion: If one of the defining stories of the last 20 years has been women's growing power in politics, then a defining story for the next 20 years has to be women's growing power in technology. Women need a louder voice and a greater role in designing and selling hardware and software.

"Technology is not neutral," Borg says. "Every invention reflects the values, perspective, background, and needs of its inventor. It's no accident that as women began entering medicine in larger numbers, medicine began questioning whether research using only male subjects was applicable to women. The variety and impact of new digital technologies will depend on the extent to which women are involved and their needs are taken into account. Technology is going to change our political, economic, social, and personal lives. Women need to be there saying, 'This is how we want things to change.' "

Caroline Kovac, 47, a vice president at IBM Research and one of Borg's many allies, is even more direct: "With the Internet, we are on the verge of epochal change. It will have a greater impact on society than the printing press has had. If women are left out, then we will be left out of one of the most fundamental changes in humankind, and we will be disenfranchised in all walks of life."

Design as if Women Mattered

Do women really think differently from men about the role of technology in their lives? If there were more female engineers, would products be different? Does making products more relevant to women make products better in general?

IBM's Caroline Kovac often thinks about those questions. Kovac runs an organization of 650 scientists and engineers, and she's about as wired - complete with laptop, cell-phone, and PDA -- as anyone you'll meet. But Kovac hates many of those tools -- especially her pager. She thinks it's ugly. And when she clips it on her belt (where it's designed to go) it makes her clothes look ugly. "This product was not designed with women in mind," she says. "I tell my male colleagues all the time, 'You may like to walk around with a tool belt on your waist. But that doesn't work for women.' They just laugh and pat me on the head."

A few technology companies have begun to realize that women don't relate to their products. IBM has launched a major initiative to make its products and services more relevant to women entrepreneurs. (See "How IBM Learned to Love She-Business," page 198.) Palm Computing, the 3Com Corp. division that has sold millions of PalmPilots, has recognized that its phenomenally popular device isn't all that popular with women. In 1997, some 90% of PalmPilot buyers were men; a year later, that figure was still at 80%. Two female engineers and one male designer, all from Ideo, a design firm in Palo Alto, set out to make the new Palm V appeal to women -- while also maintaining its popularity among men. So the team asked 15 women to voice their concerns. "Normally, when you brainstorm with engineers, it's a systematic process," says Amy Han, 35, a mechanical engineer at Ideo. "But we wanted people to speak in broader terms: What is the future of technology products for women?" The result has been a product that's better for women -- and one that's lighter, sleeker, and easier for everyone to use.

Of course, the Palm V is hardly a revolutionary advance; it's a modest rethink of a product that was designed with men in mind. What might personal digital assistants be like if they'd been conceived with women in mind? "Well," says Borg, "I find it hard to imagine that they would have been designed to fit in a 'breast' pocket." More important, they wouldn't be so personal. "PDAs and calendaring systems," she says, "are good at keeping track of one schedule. If you ask a roomful of women, 'How many of you keep track of just your schedule?' you'll probably get a meager response. The 'one-mouse, one-keyboard' paradigm is a very male model of computing. Forget personal digital assistants. What would a small-group digital assistant look like? Forget personal computers. What would a family computer look like?"

Those are the kinds of questions, agrees John Seely Brown, that offer the real opportunity for change. "We have to start asking tough questions about technology," he says. "Has it really improved our lives? If it has, how has it? If it has not, why not? What new conceptual engines do we need? The challenge isn't just to create 'better designs.' It's to achieve a deeper understanding of how technology is being embedded in society. That's our real challenge as technologists, male and female."