IWD 2023 #DareToBe | Week 2: Interpreting Datasets

?? Recap: In celebration of International Women's Day, Gbolahan Adebayo and I decided to reimagine David McCandles’ Diversity in Tech visualization together. This article is a part of the weekly log of our progress.

◥ Read Week 1:Introduction article

WEEK 2: INTERPRETING DATASETS QUESTIONS

Q1: What did you work on this week?

Jiwon: Last week, I spent hours researching and preparing the datasets* to
share with Gbolahan, so I kind of had an idea of what to expect, but I was
still surprised by what I discovered while exploring the data on Tableau
this week!

*We have 3 datasets: (1) Glassdoor's 2023 Best Place to Work filtered by tech companies, (2) Female leaderships in the 1st dataset companies (officially published on company websites), and (3) Forbes' 2023 Fortune 500 companies filtered by female CEOs.

Gbolahan: I worked on understanding the datasets and went through each 
tab. I had to decide which story I wanted to tell from the several 
datasets sent to me earlier. 

After careful consideration, I decided that I was most interested in the Fortune 500 companies whose CEOs were women dataset.

Gbolahan: I tried to do a little more research to gather information on 
the individual women CEOs, with the intention of adding that information 
to a more cohesive visualization that I would like to create using the 
dataset at some point.

Q2: What inspired you this week?

Gbolahan: I have many things to say. After going through the dataset, I had to conduct more research on the data I had decided to work with. I also checked the Tableau Public page to see if anyone had previously worked on a similar topic, and I came across many amazing visualizations. In particular, I was attracted to a visualization by Priya on Tableau called "Building Nepal," and I fell in love with her idea of visualizing data using map layers of different shapes to represent different dimensions and measures in the data. That particular visualization is my main source of inspiration this week.

Jiwon: For the first time since the Fortune 500 list began 68 years ago, more than 10% of CEOs leading Fortune 500 Companies are women today in 2023. Also, I know the percentage of women represented in tech (28%) is seen as an improvement we need to work on, but our dataset estimates 466,200+ women working in tech companies listed on Glassdoor's '2023 Best Places to Work'! I see these facts as milestones that are inspiring and empowering to me.

Q3: Is there anything that you want to do differently?

Q4: How do you feel this week?

Gbolahan: On a personal level, I have mixed feelings. I am happy to have completed a personal project that I have been working on with a friend, and I am glad it has received positive reviews! However, the job search has been difficult, and I am currently working on several projects, taking some time off, and waiting for the right opportunity.

Regarding this project for International Women's Day, I feel optimistic. I reached out to Priya on Twitter to tell her how beautiful her visualization is, and that I am inspired and would like to know how she was able to create such a masterpiece. She replied and shared some information that I believe will be helpful, and she also said she is open to fielding any more questions I might have along the way. Yay!

Jiwon: One of my friends (Tajae) told me on Saturday that he was following our "amazing project" on LinkedIn and it made me so happy to hear that because I want more men to celebrate and see the value in empowering women in tech:

Gender diversity relates to more productive companies, as measured by market value and revenue (Harvard Business Review).

'Best Places to Work' can only be achieved when both men and women feel fulfilled, and it's amazing that 41 tech companies made Glassdoor’s list of 2023 Best Places to Work – the most of any industry.

Q5: Any Inspirations?

Some of our favorite visualizations on Tableau Public (?):

Week 3: Inspiration log article will be published next week??!