CodePaLOUsa and Debunking the Steve Rule

by Derek Featherstone

The first Seize the Room podcast! We talk with Elle Waters and several of her co-panelists at the upcoming CodePaLOUsa conference where these panelists talk about "Debunking the Steve Rule."

We've started up a podcast here on Seize the Room. We'll talk with speakers, conference organizers and other colleagues to help you become a better speaker and take an inside look at conferences and get a sneak peek at their content. Here's the first installment. Enjoy!

CodePaLOUsa and Debunking the Steve Rule

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Transcript

This is the transcript of a discussion interview recorded on February 17, 2014 between Elle Waters, and panelists from Debunking the Steve Rule in preparation for the CodePaLOUsa conference. It was recorded over Skype and is the first in this new podcast series.

Interview Summary

[Intro Music]

Derek: Welcome to the Seize the Room podcast where we talk with speakers, conference organizers and other guests about how they do what they do so well. I'm your host, Derek Featherstone. I'm a former high school teacher that left full-time teaching to get into the world of Web Design. Our goal here is to not only help you be a better speaker and teacher, but to take an inside look at upcoming conferences, the speakers and of course, get some sneak peeks at the content.

This week we talk about CodePaLOUsa. CodePaLOUsa is a software development conference held in Louisville, Kentucky (the home of the world-famous Kentucky Derby, and some serious bourbon). The conference says that it covers all aspects of software development. And when they say all aspects, they mean it. The conference organizers have dedicated a full panel session to "Debunking the Steve Rule": the idea that at a tech conference there will be more men in the room named Steve than there will be women. Here we join Simply Accessible's Elle Waters as she hosts a great pre-conference discussion on "The Steve Rule" with her co-panelists.

Elle: Today I'm really excited to host this podcast. Next week marks the fourth anniversary of Code PaLOUsa and it's an annual software and development held each year in Louisville, Kentucky. (so bourbon drinkers, represent.) The conference has 80 sessions this year. It's going to be at the Galt House next Monday, February 24th through Wednesday the 26th. It's really always cool to see the wide variety of topics listed each year and this one really doesn't disappoint. Next Tuesday evening, I have the honor, along with everyone here today of participating on a panel discussion and it's entitled Debunking the Steve Rule. We have everyone here that's on the panel, I believe. Corinna, why don't you start us off with some introductions and each of you guys feel free to tell us who you are and what your business card says you do.

Corinna: Hi everybody. I'm Corinna Brock and I am a web developer. I do mainly front end development but my training was in Ruby on Rails and also some PHP.

The idea behind this podcast was just that generally there are more men named Steve at a given conference than there are women. So what do we do about it?

Elle: How about you, Colleen?

Colleen: My name is Colleen Slaughter and I am a leadership coach and speaker and I have a very strong background in change management which includes working in fields where women are very much the minority.

My purpose for being here is to offer a different perspective in terms of more leadership development for women and maybe some other ideas for upping women's participation, not only in the conferences but I think in male-dominated industries in general.

Elle: Danielle?

Danielle: Hi. My name is Danielle Cooley and I am an independent user experience consultant. That means I work with designer and developers to make sure that the products they design and develop are easy for people to understand and use.

I have the sort of unique perspective of coming from a niche field that is much more 50/50 than the more pure development fields that most of the rest of you are coming from.

Elle: Very cool. And my name is Elle Waters. I work at Simply Accessible. My title is Director of ________ Strategy which means on any given day whether it be business strategy, client strategy or speaking strategy even, that is generally what I focus on.

Most of the time, I work within large organizations to help them build out a program so that they can support web accessibility and make sure that all of their digital content is accessible to everyone.

Emily, you're next.

Emily: Hi everyone, I'm Emily Shweiss. I am a senior technical recruiter based in Louisville, Kentucky. I focus on software development opportunities and I'm big on trying to use my recruiting powers for some good and I'm really big on area meet-up user groups and trying to promote more learning opportunities for developers in our area.

Elle: Awesome.

Mandi?

Mandi: Hi, I'm Mandi Septer. I'm currently a project manager with Hewlett Packard. I work on a government contract and I have for the past 13 years had an IT field which I've done for 13 years.

I just work more so with men than I do women, so I'm just looking to see what I can bring to this table and panel and bring to our positive experience.

Elle: That's great.

And Miss Bell, I don't know how to pronounce your first name.

Terena: My name is Terena Bell, CEO of In Every Language. We are a translation company and a lot of people aren't aware of how highly technologically-based translation is. We are a STEM industry, because we are constantly coding machine translation engines and then also the way that translation interfaces with website, mobile app development, basically just user interface in general.

I'm really glad to be on the call, thank you.

Elle: Well that's great. Corinna, thank you so much for working this out with the CodePaLOUsa conference organizers. Can you tell me a little bit of background about how this came about? What prompted you to do this? What made you think that it would be well-received in Louisville, Kentucky? Tell us a little more about it.

Corinna: Absolutely. I did not actually start my career off as a developer. I started my career off as an executive assistant. About two years ago, I decided that I wanted to do more and I had always loved computers.

So I took a giant leap and went from Knoxville, Tennessee to New York City and took two different Ruby on Rails Development classes in the space of six months. One was just a little five week course and from there, they saved me a spot in the inaugural class of the Flatiron School. I just fell in love with it. Then I came back to Knoxville and tried to find a job. A lot of what I dealt with was guys who just didn't want to work on a team with women.

Elle: Really?

Corinna: Yes. It was really interesting. But I also ran into a lot of wonderful people and where I am now, they make a big effort to recruit women. What really sort of struck me was how much of a dichotomy there still was between men and women and this field. And it's getting worse on both ends which is really sad. Everyone knows that women are only 12% of computer graduates. It's down more than 20% from the 80s. There was a report released last week that showed that 45% of women working in technological fields are more likely than their male counterparts to leave the industry within a year. That is just really sad so we've got to do something about it. I think there is a huge feeling of isolation and loneliness. It doesn't need to be that way. Yes, there are fewer of us, but we have people from all kinds of diverse backgrounds.

Elle: I think that's really interesting given that, I'll be honest, I've kind of had a pretty male-dominated career. Before being in technology, I was in the army. While I was definitely one of 20 individuals and I'd be the only female in that group pretty regularly, I never felt a sense of being pushed to the side and I don't know if that's because of having five brothers and I'm just kind of used to being jostled about or if that's something where maybe the expectations were different. I don't know. I'd be interested to hear from the other panelists if that is something in Corinna's experience. I know that Danielle, you said that yours was more of an equal gender balance within UX and that doesn't surprise me. That has been my experience as well. What about the rest of you guys. Colleen, is change management something that you've found more male-dominated within the tech sector of that?

Colleen: No, not change management itself, but first of all, just the technology industry in general. I worked before for Ariba which now is an SAP company but before was on its own. In that alone, there were maybe 10% women in general. Many of our clients were also very male-dominated, the automotive industry, consumer diversified manufacturing and finance as well. I think there is more than just the IT field where, in general of course, that has a majority of men. What I find in that is that what makes the women really survive is really holding on to why they're in it, because they really love what they're doing. It also is something for the women to understand that they're not alone because it can be incredibly isolating and especially if women aren't really sure how to make the most of their own skills in the field that they're in.

Elle: Emily, what has been your experience as a recruiter? Is that a thing that you've found to be a stumbling block for women who are entering into the tech industry for the first time or shifting careers?

Emily: I see a mix. There are actually very few women we get as applicants, and that pool is small. I'm not usually dealing with applicants, I'm usually out there hunting to find people. It's usually a smaller group for us to come across. More often than not, I will have an employer say, "We would love to have more women on the team," than the reverse of, "Please don't show me any ladies." I appreciate that to a point that they want to have more women on their team because it's easier to start from that. Sometimes I don't want them to be biased and pick me just because I'm a woman though. Let me earn it, too. So I have mixed feelings when I get that request, but honestly the pool is so small that I think that is the biggest hurdle. I don't know how to get more people attracted to the field and then, as someone had mentioned, get them to stay in the field, because we lose people a year or two in and that's really unfortunately.

Elle: Well, I will be honest that I have traditionally skewed and steered away from highlighting women in technology when I think it was either last year or the year before, there was a really popular podcast that does accessibility podcasting. There is an annual conference that happens every year in San Diego. It's hugely popular and it's called CSUN named after the California State University in Northridge where it originated. They had a women in CSUN podcast special and I asked where the African Americans of CSUN podcast special was and where is the gay accessibility professionals of CSUN podcast was? Of course, it wasn't super popular but at the same time, I go to the annual Women of CSUN lunch because I love hanging out with all these fantastic female professionals in the space. So I find myself a giant hypocrite in a lot of ways and I was called out on it when I said, "I'm so excited for doing this panel and doing this podcast."I realized that I don't really know where the line is for me.

Corinna: I struggle even thinking about putting this out there as a topic of conversation but when I was in New York, I would go to user group meetings where there were 80 members of a development meet up or whatever and, if I was lucky, there was one other woman there. I would get emails from women all the time saying, "Oh, I saw that you said that you were lucky that there was on other woman there.

Elle: I think we lost you, Corinna.

Terena: That was actually one of my questions for Corinna earlier. I had wondered if she saw that it got better once she left the south, because it's odd what I pick up on when I'm at an international conference versus others. If I'm being blunt, they're evident at both, but they're on very different levels. So I had wondered if once Corinna left the south, how that changed.

Elle: She might have been muted.

Corinna: Am I back?

Elle: Yes. What is the geographical spread as you've seen it?

Corinna: There is not really much of a difference. I run up a little bit more against sort of the general good old boys in the south but even in New York and Boston where it was before, it's definitely still a boys' club.

One of the really nice things that I have been finding more and more that guys actually value women in the field. I'm sorry, I don't remember who said it but I really do want to be picked on my own merit. I don't want to be picked because, "She's the only woman that applied and we think we should have a woman on the team." In my experience, women have a very different viewpoint and different ways of approaching problems and it really does add value.

Elle: Yes, Emily was mentioning that as far as being picked on their own merits instead of just because of gender. I wonder too though, because the web — specifically within technology has thankfully, we can all be so grateful — become a much more user-focused experience between the web standards movement, mobile adoption, responsive web, progressive enhancement. All of these things really focus a lot more on the user and I'm wondering if two things are happening with this. When I go and speak on the west coast, I find that it tends to be a lot more design-centric of an experience. That's just, again, my little world within accessibility speaking at conferences. There are a lot of design-centric, user experience-centric kinds of conferences that tend to happen on the west coast. I don't find there to be a disparity as far as the 20:1 or more guys named Steve to women at a conference. I'm wondering if, because of the shift towards a more design-focused web, we are becoming more accepting, maybe, of women in their roles knowing that there is a certain amount of empathy. I'm speaking way about stereotypes and I'm expecting someone to just push me down and that's totally find on this. But there is a certain amount of correlation between the way that women think about experiences and the way that men think about experience. So I'm putting it out there, also knowing that Danielle's field tends to attract more women than maybe say, Corinna, Ruby on Rails, necessarily. Or worse, if someone is a database administrator where there is really not a whole lot of UI, maybe there's that. But then, when you're talking about women leaving technology, that doesn't really add up to that sort of anecdotal experience.

Terena: Some of the reasons why women may be leaving technology could be the reasons why women leave any profession. Whenever a heterosexual couple gets married and has a child, the woman is the one who is more likely to quit. It doesn't matter if she's in technology or whether there's an ad exec or whether she cleans rooms at the Hilton. That's just the statistic.

Danielle: Right, that happens at higher rates in IT fields,

Colleen: Also just from my own experience and what I've been observing is that it also has to do with the very clear ceiling that exists for women, particularly in very male-dominated fields. Women get discouraged and again, it's fairly common and pretty normal to feel isolated and it's pretty hard to feel motivated when one feels isolated and discourage if they're only seeing men getting promoted and men obtaining the top spots.

Terena: Where my discouragement on this comes from is this. To be honest, I've run my own company for the last eight and a half years so I tend to not think about the glass ceiling as much because I'm already the CEO. I'm already as top as you can get with my business but when you think about that, that was just a plunge that I took. I did that after leaving a job where I was sexually harassed. It wasn't in the tech sector but I used to work in television and I will tell anybody and their mother I flat out left that TV station because one of the producers was following me home at night and HR wouldn't do anything about it.

Elle: So your advice to level the playing field is kind of Cheryl Sandberg's Lean In. The idea is, "Don't just participate, lead."

Terena: Well, yes. But even though I'm at the top of the glass ceiling, there are still ways in which you aren't taken seriously. When I was talking about Corinna earlier about the geographic differences, if I go to a tech event here in Louisville or here in Kentucky, the way that people look at me is that they are just kind of surprised I'm even there. Sometimes when people ask who I'm with, "Well I'm with every language." And they're like, "Oh, she's here for her."

The glass ceiling is one thing on being promoted, but even though I'm already at the top of where I can get, there's still the whole, "Am I being taken seriously?" And I think that if we can fix that, we can fix the glass ceiling because whenever you start seeing brains more than boobs, that's when you start listening to what people are saying. And that's what I run into when I go to international conferences or when I'm dealing with people in larger cities to where I can be working with whoever is in charge. I'm thinking of a large computer company and then I'm also thinking of a virus software company where I'm talking to the person who is in charge of getting translation integrated with website or with mobile app of whatever. You find out after talking to them for an hour at a mixer or emailing with them for a couple of weeks that they don't want to buy translation, they just want to go out with you and they never listened to anything that you said.

Elle: That's an expensive pick up routine.

Terena: It is. I just wonder if men ever feel like we think they're only there for conference sex or if it's only women that get hit on inappropriately at some of these events.

Elle: Is it inappropriate to say that the last place on earth I'd go to"¦never mind.

Terena: Exactly. I'm there for work. I don't know if any of your ladies have ever experienced this before but when that winds up being the angle that's in some of these people's minds.

Like the guy with the virus thing, he wasn't even the decision maker on this. After me flipping the conversation back to work four times, he finally just said, "Well you know, I have to admit, all of this emailing and all of these calls, I really just wanted to get to know you personally and you need to talk to Martin, he is our decision guy."

Elle: I don't have the same experiences. Generally, I am one of the weirder looking people in the room, I'll be honest. Just because I tend to pick unnatural hair colors or I'm really, really loud, generally. Most of the time, maybe I have somewhat of a heat shield because I don't get guys picking me up at conferences. I've got guys who are avoiding me in the hallway, and that's okay.

Corrina: I don't either.

Elle: So I think there is something to that, definitely. I think that probably more women experience that, especially women who are public speakers who are traditionally very attractive. I think that's probably something.

Terena, you bring up a good point. The question is how do we change the perception, the way that people see us, not just men but other women. How do we change the perception of how people see women at tech conferences? Because I see things like Women in Tech Conference or the women IT technology kind of leadership group and that, to me, feels like it segments. I know that it empowers to some extent but I don't think that's the final answer.

Corinna: I think that you're absolutely right, Elle. We do deal with the same sort of sexual harassment and that kind of thing.

There was a really popular article about a woman's experience at a conference and all the sexual harassment that she dealt with. But I think you're right. I think women in technology groups are a first step. I think that women in technology, go in groups of five or six. It's not necessarily a safety in numbers thing, but if you're there you'll feel more comfortable if you know someone. Also, present things.

Elle: Right. Be more visible, for sure.

Corinna: Be visible. I'm not only doing a panel, I'm doing a "your first Ruby on Rails app in 45 minutes" presentation at Code PaLOUsa.

People look at you. Even if you don't consider yourself traditionally attractive, most people will find you attractive.

Terena: You're the only girl in the comic shop.

Corinna: Exactly.

Elle: I was the only girl the woodworking shop last month and that is a similar experience, too.

Corinna: Exactly. But if you start talking and you have something legitimate to say, I find that more often than not, they stop staring at your chest and they start actually listening to you, which is nice.

Elle: I have a follow up question on that. A really well known public speaker and blogger who is a friend of mine and we kind of banter off and on, once told me that he thought there were no charismatic female public speakers. I'm not going to use his name because I would totally be called out on this, but he said that those who were charismatic were usually just cashing in on their sexuality.

Corinna: That's nice.

Elle: I challenged him about this mostly because the definition of sexuality gets created by men, but also because I think men do this as much as women do it, so it's just less acceptable for women to do it. In other words, you want to be an engaging speaker, you want to make a connection with the audience and so you tend to really capitalize on some of the energy that goes between you and the audience.

So how do you do that as a woman, as a speaker, and not have it perceived as a bit forward? I'm going to use an old fashioned word there. How do you do that without it being about capitalizing on "your sexuality"other than speaking in really brainy Ruby on Rails terms that would totally lose me?

Corinna: Can I challenge you a little bit on that?

Elle: Sure.

Corinna: Why is it a bad thing to be forward?

Elle: Oh, I think forward is fine. I was using that term because it's an old-fashioned "put her in her place kind of thing". I'm saying that — I mean, maybe we don't.

I'm all for expressing sexuality. I think it's fantastic. I think that the question is that if we're trying to be taken seriously, as what our brains have to say and not what are chest is out there or whatever, if we're trying to be taken seriously on what we can contribute to the conversation, I think we run the risk, because of this particular issue, that if we do capitalize on our sexuality, that that's sort of a cheap way to be able to get attention. Last year, I was at a very similar conference and there were chicks with tight t-Shirts at a tech conference and they had whatever message they had, it was right across their chest. I thought, "You know, it probably gets them the eyes that they need, but I'm not sure that it gets them the respect they deserve."

Terena: It's funny because I've heard both sides of the fence and it's funny, I was just thinking about George Clooney. No one would ever admit that George Clooney is not a sexy man. That is simply not true. You can't say that. But the fact that he is good looking doesn't make what he has to say about the Sudan any less important. Or when Matt Damon talks about the availability of clean water for people, does anyone ever say, "Well, Matt, you really need to ugly yourself up before you start talking about clean water, because no one is going to take you seriously." Or, "George, whenever you go down and get arrested because of everything going on in the Sudan, just make sure you look as bad as possible."

Elle: But are they telling them to wear a tight t-Shirt? I don't know.

Terena: Well, no. See, that's the thing. They just get to be themselves.

And now I'm sitting here obsessing in my brain about what I'm going to wear when I present. I always wear a skirt, because I look nice in a skirt, I'm tall. That's when you are told to wear when you're a little girl. You put on a dress for church, not pants.

Elle: Fair warning, I will be wearing platform boots because that's what I'd be wearing anyway.

Terena: Good point. But it's like you should just be able to be yourself and there shouldn't be an accusation either way. You shouldn't be accused of being too sexy at the conference or of being too dowdy. I just need to be accused of being Terena.

Elle: Fair. I think that's fair.

Corinna: Amen.

Colleen: I'll agree with that and just say that the most important thing is consistency, meaning just being yourself across the board. Consistently show up and bring value to the people you work with and for and consistently be who you are in terms of your dress. What I heard you say, Elle, and I'm not sure if that's exactly what you were saying but something I heard was about dressing or not dressing provocatively on purpose, something like that. I think, obviously we don't want to do anything but if we're going to do anything on purpose with our clothes than we might want to be more conservative than anything. Overall, it's being ourselves because at the end of the day, if we want to be respected for who we are then we need to be ourselves. If we're trying to be provocative to move up then that's basically what we're going to get. So whatever we're giving is what we'll get.

Elle: I think that's typical and more often, I was using that because it's a really example. It's more typical of that kind of thing to happen with what you would call "booth bunnies" than necessarily speakers. Yes, that's actually a term.

But to my friend who's the blogger and the public speaker, he did raise a good point that had me investigate what that means as far as charisma for a woman when speaking on the stage and how closely aligned some of that might be to traditional views of flirtation when it's not. Every speaker flirts with the audience. Every speaker woos the audience because that is what our role is, to be able to engage with them and make a connection. So there's a certain amount of reaching out and that was really the more subtle nuances of that and I think that you guys hit on that really well which is to be exactly who you are and that doesn't change depending. So how do we raise women to be like this? I have a 16 year old daughter. If we're looking at how to increase the tech sector with more women and more voices from a female point of view, how do we raise these women to embrace this and encourage participation in the tech industry?

Terena: My mother sent me to computer camp. Looking back, I'm trying to remember if I was the only girl that was in there and I don't know. I just went to computer camp and it was a week. I remember I was the youngest person in there, but she just sent me to computer camp to learn Basic and I was probably six or seven years old. Everybody sat there on Apple 2Cs and learned how to make their name go across the screen. So that was always presented as an option to me in addition to whatever else I wanted to be.

Emily: I think that's key, it needs to really start in the home. You want those educational programs and coding camps to be available but it really needs to start from a parenting level and I think it's even being reflected in the toy industry these days.

There's been a lot of rebellion, like that little seven year old girl who wrote the letter to LEGO was my hero, a couple of weeks ago? That was adorable. Why do the girl minifigs just sit at home? I want to go on adventures too. It starts in the home and in the stage that's set for these little girls by their parents. Terena being told, "You can do this too. This is a great option for you."

Elle: Emily, I like that you brought up the toy industry because I do think that that has as much of a voice or an influence on children and how they're raised as much as what parents put into their kids as far as nurturing them to feel like they have all these options. You can be an astronaut, you can be President of the United States, you can whatever. At the same time, there is a lot within media and pay that teaches children what the appropriate role for them is and so I like that you brought that up about the toy industry. I think that's a good way to look at things too.

Colleen: Another idea is to go into the different middle schools and high schools and just present, specifically to the girls there, to present about what it is that we do in particular, whether it's career day or some other special time.

I know for me, that is how I held on to one of the majors I had, because someone had presented it in high school. I had that little voice in my ear through college when I was ready to drop one of my majors but I held onto it because of what I had heard this person present. Sometimes parents aren't able to do it or for whatever reason but if they can also get it through school or through other means.

Elle: That's great. That's a great suggestion.

Corinna: There's actually a Center for Women and Information Technology, they run a scholarship program every year. I sit on their board and you just review the scholarship applications. They have one for almost every region and they're wonderful.

For me, I don't think that all of the pink and the princess stuff is really bad. I have a nine year old and we just bought a new house and she wanted to paint her room pink. I've ended up with a nine year old who is into competitive cheerleading but who also very vocally calls herself a nerd and stands up for herself when she says that her favorite subject is math. I love it.

Elle: I don't think that it's so much against those things as much as that knowing that that's not the end and sum of what —

Corinna: That it's the only thing.

Elle: Yes, exactly.

Elle: We have a few more minutes. Go ahead.

Mandi: I just wanted to comment on what Colleen said about starting in the schools, in the middle and high schools. We did a career day a couple of months ago into the middle schools and a lot of kids didn't know much about the IT field and what it was except for Facebook and some of the social media, so it was really good to start there.

A lot of the women that are in the male-dominated career fields, you really have to be strong women like all the women when we have on this panel. When you're dominated by men, if you sit there and you're quiet and you just let men run all over the place or people in general, you'll miss the opportunity for career-advancements. Just like I said, everyone on this panel here, I think, are all strong women and have done well in careers because of that. And it starts within the home at a young age, like the little girl who wrote to LEGO. She'll probably do well because she is already starting at age seven or whatever she is, speaking her mind.

**Corinna:**I want to hire her.

Elle: Exactly. Definitely send her an application form straight away.

Corinna: I'm already recruiting her hardcore.

Elle: I want to close out with a couple of questions on what you guys are looking forward to at Code PaLOUsa. I'll go ahead and offer up that Colleen, your blog post as well as your keynote, I am really interested in because change management is something that is very close to how to be able to shift the paradigm to accepting accessibility as an integral part of UX design and development. So I am very excited to attend yours. What about other things that you guys are looking forward to?

Terena: I am looking forward to finally getting to meet all you ladies in person.

Colleen: This is the same and I am also just looking forward to hearing and learning more about the different situations and different opportunities that especially you as women are facing in this field.

Elle: Very cool.

Corrina There's also the open spaces too in case there's a topic at Code PaLOUsa that you guys see that's not represented. We had a great time last year with using the open spaces timeslot to be able to get together ad hoc discussion groups. So I highly encourage you guys to do that too and anybody else listening.

Elle: Okay, so thank you guys so much for taking time and working through the multi-operating system technical glitches and Corinna for putting this together, Code PaLOUsa organizers. This has been a lot of fun. I think that the panel discussion is going to be even more lively now that we've gotten to know each other. I'm just going to put this out to anyone who is listening or reading the transcript. Does this topic fire you up? Is your name Steve? Join us next Tuesday, February 25th at 7:30 pm at the Grand Ballroom at the Golf House for Debunking the Steve Rule panel discussion and the whole Code PaLOUsa conference. We look forward to it.

[Outro Music]

Derek: So, if you're a speaker, do you think about the gender balance (or imbalance) in the audience when you're preparing your slides and your prseentation? Would you prepare differently if you knew that your audience was ALL female? or ALL male? Does any of it matter? Would you present the same content but in a different way? And does your answer to those questions depend on whether or not you're a male or female presenter? Be careful how you answer :) If you're looking for more details on CodePaLOUsa, head over to codepalousa.com that's c o d e p a l o u s a dot com