Tomorrow I am driving to scenic Newark with three of my co-workers to present a Women in Technology seminar for one of our clients. This grew out of presenting a similar seminar for another client a couple of years ago. The four of us will talk about our careers - the paths that led us to where we are, the values we hold most dear, our career highs and lows, a typical day in our lives, the misconceptions about jobs in the technology field, etc. We'll field their questions and try to encourage them to find mentors and work/life balance and jobs that make them happy, at least most of the time. There will be questions about how you find support in large organizations, how you decide what you want to be when you grow up (I still don't know the answer to that one!), what resources we've found valuable and that provided good guidance.

Someone will then hesitantly ask, perhaps making a joke about it, whether we've encountered any harassment in our jobs. I've been extraordinarily fortunate in my career - I've been given many opportunities and have been able to try out new roles on a regular basis. I've been allowed to both succeed and fail, and have learned from both experiences. In my professional life I have never once been harassed, been made to feel less worthy of my job or my choices because I'm female, and have never felt as if there was a ceiling, glass or otherwise, in the companies I've worked for. (There was a case in a college job where I was told I could not be the manager of the organization I worked in because the manager had to carry large sums of money around campus at night. That was a case where the process should have been fixed rather than discrimating against more than half of the workers, but at the time I didn't want the manager job and didn't see a point in pursuing the issue.)

I realize this is still not the norm, and each of the other three women I will present with can cite cases of clear harassment in their careers. I am still asked fairly often how it feels to be the only woman among a group of male executives, sometimes by men and sometimes by women. My response usually centers on the fact that it's become invisible to me. I like working with capable, interesting, intelligent people and tend not to notice gender as much as I used to. That being said, I would far prefer to see more women in senior level management and executive positions in technology companies. Although many women claim to admire Carly Fiorina for the role she plays at HP, most would not want to be in her position, knowing the sacrifices and choices she's made along the way.

The last person I promoted into a VP level position was male. There were five candidates for the job - two female and three male. My focus was on choosing the best person for the job, regardless of gender and I believe that I did that in selecting the person I did. Sometimes I feel a twinge of guilt (and realize I sound a bit defensive) - I didn't promote a woman who was very qualified and would have done a good job. Instead I chose a man who was exceptionally qualified and will do a great job. The woman who was not selected (the other woman dropped out because she had a job offer in another part of the company) still works for me and I've tried to provide her coaching in the areas in which she can improve.

So, no moral to this story, no sparkling insights or great truths, just four women in a car for five or six hours, discussing the ways of the world in which we live. My predictions on conversation content:

1. The presentation we'll be making - 25%
2. What's up at work - 25%
3. Gossip (overlaps with #2) - 25%
4. The Apprentice - 10%
5. Our families - 15% (overlaps with #2 - three of us have husbands who work for our company)
6. Shoes - 10%

Yes, I know that totals to more than 100%, which just goes to show that there's always room for shoes.