For those of you in the Boulder area, a shortened version of my posting on Closet Entrepreneurs is running in today’s Daily Camera.  Once a week, this local newspaper puts out a business section that includes posts from local bloggers, under a column called The Final Word. That’s where you’ll find my post.

By coincidence, the other posting featured is from a blogger who I know, not through the blogosphere, but through my old workplace.  Lucy Sanders and I both worked for the local Bell Labs facility before leaving in 2001 and 2002, respectively.  Lucy went off to found the National Center for Women & Information Technology in Boulder, which is fueled by her passion to see women making a difference in the world of computing technology. Here’s the mission statement for the organization:

The mission of the National Center for Women & Information Technology is to ensure that women are fully represented in the influential world of information technology and computing.

NCWIT’s overarching goal is parity in the professional information technology (IT) workforce, and our fundamental strategy is to educate, disseminate, and advocate a national, multi-year implementation plan that generates tangible progress within 20 years. 

In five short years, Lucy has gathered a diverse and impressive group of people to work on big stuff. The Executive Advisory Council includes CEOs, astronauts, venture capitalists and university presidents. There’s a network of hubs–academic alliances, industry partnerships, professional groups–that gets tapped into. This woman is playing for keeps and she’s got the political savvy and stamina to see this vision through. 

Passion unleashed is powerful.  Combine that with savvy and focus and it becomes unstoppable.

I suspect that life is a lot more interesting for Lucy since she left her VP corner office in the corporate world.

BTW–her posting had nothing to do with NCWIT and everything to do with it. It’s called, "The Problem With Work-Life Balance."  Enjoy.