Wanted: Girl Geeks & Soccer Players

7:05 PM -- I was glad to see that, finally, someone is taking steps to address the IT industry's yawning gender gap. (See Cisco, NCWIT Join Forces and Symantec's Gordon Honored.)

Actually, judging by industry shows that I've been to, this is not so much a gender gap as a chasm. Women are still in the minority on the conference floor, and even more so, in the boardroom.

Research from the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) shows that the number of women in IT has actually been declining over recent years, hence the pressing need to redress this balance.

Apart from everything else, I have always felt that getting more ladeeeez involved in technology will help tone down the IT industry's often unbearable geek factor.

Who's to say, though, that this will be the case? Whilst playing soccer last night, some little minx on the opposition team showed me a thing or two about equal opportunities by kicking me all over the pitch and then hammering a shot into the goal.And why not?

If more companies follow Cisco's lead and throw their weight behind efforts to get girls into IT, then we could see more women become big hitters in the data center as well.

As for me -- well, I have decided to burn my jockstrap (and quite possibly the rest of my soccer equipment as well).

James Rogers, Senior Editor, Byte and Switch