The ‘Softie in Question: Lynn Langit

Job title: Senior Developer Evangelist – US/West.

 As an evangelist, Lynn Langit’s job is to share her passion for technology with others. But it is not just a job for Lynn. At Microsoft, Lynn has molded her passion and lifestyle into a thriving career.

From her early days as a budding linguistics student in a North Dakota farming community to running programs that introduce young women to technology from Southern California to South Africa, Lynn cuts her own trail and brings 100% of her electric presence to everything she does.

Microspotting sat down with Lynn (actually, we sat down while she logged a few miles at her treadmill-desk) to discuss women in technology and her idea of intrapreneuring.

{in-tra-pre-neur (In¹tre-pre-nur) n. A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea <they are passionate about!> into a finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation [intra(corporate) + (ENTRE)PRENEUR.] -intrapre-neuri-al adj. -intra-pre-neuri-al-ism n. -in'trapre-neuri-al-ly adv.}

Lynn, tell us about your work with young women in technology.
I work on two programs. The first is “Teaching Kids Programming” (TKP), which I co-founded. There I design and teach courseware to introduce middle-school aged girls and boys to programming. I work on TKP with contributors from Microsoft as well from the open-source programming community.

Second, I teach at and contribute courseware to Microsoft DigiGirlz, which is a series of events that showcase tech careers for high school girls. I have taught my TKP courseware in 15 US states and in places such as Denmark and South Africa.

What‘s the greater goal of these programs?
There are still very few women in programming. With TKP and DigiGirlz, we’re trying to provide a pipeline of technical women from which Microsoft and other tech companies can hire. Pipelines for female programming talent simply don’t yet exist, particularly in the US.
 

We’ve heard that you had to build a pipeline for yourself.
Definitely. I’m originally from West Fargo, North Dakota and was the first person in my family to go to college. My parents were farmers. My mother completed high school and father only made it through the 5th grade.

And you just had some sort of epiphany that you wanted to work on the cutting edge of technology?
At a young age, I showed promise in math and science. Although my parents did encourage me to read, I had little academic guidance at home and… get this… my middle school math teacher looked me in the eye and said, “Honey, girls don’t do math.”

How’d you overcome that one?
One of my grandmothers was from Austria and I took an interest in learning German from her. Since I felt unwelcome in math and sciences, I directed my energies toward linguistics.

I studied in Germany for a year as an exchange student. The flight over to Europe was the first time I had been on a plane. Upon my return, I had outgrown my high school, so I enrolled in Moorehead State in Minnesota to continue my language studies.

How old were you?
Sixteen. I graduated college at 19.

Wait a minute, you moved to Minnesota by yourself at 16?
Somebody needs to brush up on their North Dakota geography. West Fargo is on the border. I lived at home and used to ride my bike to college – across the state line.

After graduating, I moved to Los Angeles and had an entire first career in business retailing. It was pretty wild… I was steadily working 80 to 100 hours per week and thought nothing of it.

Bringing a little bit of that farm work ethic to the business world?
I built my way up to VP at Software Etc. by the time I was about 26. Our company was on the forefront of the arrival of video games in the United States. I saw a lot of potential in the software products that we were selling, so I dusted off my original passion for math and science and started to teach myself DOS.

I had a daughter and soon decided that I wanted to have more of a finite workday. So, I used my new skills to become a tech instructor and eventually a tech consultant.

How and why’d you come over to Microsoft?
Microsoft was a client of my consultancy and I was attracted to the evangelist role as it lets me be an entrepreneur within the larger structure of the company.

For me, that’s ideal balance. I have really been able to utilize the strength of the company to make a positive social impact. I call it “intrapreneuring.”

Beyond DigiGirlz and TKP, what are your other intrapreneuring projects?
I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a number of great projects. One that stands out is personally volunteering to help build the largest electronic medical records database in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Does your background in linguistics complement evangelism and intrapreneurialism?
Very much so. Linguistics gives me a broad perspective and helps me to tailor messages to different people. In many ways, a big part of what I do is translating ideas and technology to a variety of audiences.
 

So, my background allows me to debunk code with 20-year-olds, but also talk shop with the business and marketing decision-makers.

[Writer’s note: If Lynn’s middle school math teacher is out there, we’d love to know your thoughts on that…]

Has Lynn got you thinking about your own career possibilities as an “intrapreneur”? If so, here are a few of the most recent job postings for Developer Evangelists at Microsoft. 

LINKS:
Books by Lynn:
Smart Business Intelligence with SQL Server 2008
Foundations of SQL Server 2008 Business Intelligence