Midterm has been locked and loaded. We presented yesterday and I like to think it went well (but hey, maybe I’m a delusional optimist). Zoe and I struggled with this till the end and, although not perfect, I am certainly happy with the way it came out!
I think our biggest challenge with this was narrowing down the subject (gender diversity in the tech world) into a digestible project that 1) was going to be effective and evocative and 2) it was going to be actionable in the short amount of time we had to get this done.

We started with creating a series of interventions that ended up being narrowed down to a single twitterbot. We struggled to wrangle the idea, find the right audience and more importantly, figure out what we wanted to say about it.
I think it’s hard enough to find a project that you feel good about, but it’s even harder when you’re navigating the mine field of social justice. The topics are dense, multi-layered and complex and I think we struggled at finding a way to balance that out with making something “quick and dirty.”

On the other hand, we made a freaking twitter bot. The things it says are actually kind of hilarious and sometimes on point. In the short amount of time it was live, we got followers and likes galore. I’m super proud.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, her and I work really well together. I don’t know if we’ll keep the topic for the final, but I think it was a great first stab at addressing something that is relevant and contemporary.
As far as the critics’ feedback, I really like that we got such a positive reaction. What they said it’s right, it’s not polished and still a little muggy, but seeing Alexander so excited about it and having both of them have such a great reaction of what this could be, and how far the project could go gave me hope and affirmation that we were down the right path.

So, overall, I’m pleased with the result. I also kinda loved that we managed to weave in witchcraft in there so organically… but that’s just a personal love I have for that, and halloween of course 😛

See midterm presentation below: