A few notes about the Women’s Conference held at the firm, for the firm’s employees. Yes, a great opportunity to learn more on career development, do some networking with others from the firm (4,000 attendees is the number thrown around), hear some motivating speakers, both fellow employees as well as writers/speakers/etc (Last year I saw Dr. Pamela Peeke speak, and today I saw her climbing out of a cab in front of the conference center for today’s session.)

But what did I concern myself with? People-watching. Really, women-watching (and if your question is, can men go to the women’s conference? the answer is yes). This conference brings together devs, testers, PMs, Sales, Managers, GMs, Marketing, Editors (like me). The spectrum is wide. So is the wardrobe. I’m tempted to spend the next keynote doing some research. How many women walking in are casually dressed? Dressed for success? Wearing $150 jeans? Wearing a swag t-shirt? Of course then I would want to cross-reference with how many are from Seattle/Puget Sound vs. the rest of the country vs. the rest of the world (and, where in the world. I saw people from Brazil, Spain, Nigeria, Norway, India, the U.K., etc).

Very few women today were wearing suits. Many many were wearing jeans. I saw lots of Sevens, a few Luckys and many that looked expensive. Not as much fleece as one would expect. I wonder if these lovely ladies did as I did, and dressed it up slightly (nice jeans with a sweater and cute heels). Cute gauchos on a woman from Latin America. A beautiful patterened dress (yes! a dress) on a tall blonde. The U.K. PM had a silvery/white knitted top with baggy sleeves. She was also wearing brown cowboy boots. Peasant blouses, silky tank tops. Suede boots. Lots of Coach bags. Lots of LV, too.

I brought my camera with the second day, but it was rather crowded in the halls and don’t think I would have gotten any good footage.

Oh, and back to the conference. While I attended many good sessions with many great motivating speakers, all talking about mentoring, networking, negotiating, breaking through the stuck points, that kind of stuff … probably the best session I went to was a technology panel discussing the firm and Web 2.0. Go figure. Am hoping they do more of those in the future. I can only attend so many sessions on negotiating skills.