Ada Lovelace day

As documented at http://findingada.com/:

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.

All you need to do is sign the pledge, pick your tech heroine and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about - everyone is invited.

To help us keep track of the conversation about Ada Lovelace Day ahead of the event, and to pull together everything on the day, please use these tags:

• AdaLovelaceDay09 for Delicious, Technorati etc. It’s long, but clear.
• #ALD09 for Twitter hashtags.

I already know who my tech heroine is, and while I'll write this again on the day, I'm happy to nominate... LUCILLE BALL!!

No, I'm not joking.

Lucille Ball is one of the great unrecognised media figures of our time. Media is a technology, and technology is increasingly a medium, so why not? Amazingnesses include:

1. Lucille Ball invented the repeat. And if you think that's a so-so achievement, get yourself a copy of 'Everything Bad is Good for You' and get yourself some learning about the power of repeatability. The more times a consumer can watch a show, the more potentially profitable it can be over time, and the greater incentive there is for producers to improve the quality. DVD box sets, people. And yes, I am saying Lucille Ball is responsible for the Sopranos.

2. Lucille Ball opened people's minds & broke down prejudices. Desi Arnaz (Ricky) was Cuban, people. And this was the 50s. (And yes they were actually married, but did divorce after 20 years or so.)

3. Lucille Ball was the first female head of a TV production company (DesiLu). 

4. Lucille Ball produced Star Trek.

HA! Bet you didn't know that last one, did you? Totally true, and she gets the credit for Mission: Impossible, too.