In honor of Ada Lovelace Day, I would like to share with all of you lovely BitchBuzz readers about the woman in technology that I admire and has influenced me the most: Mena Trott from Six Apart.
While she is widely known around the world as "Mena from Six Apart", "Mena whose husband Ben wrote Movable Type for her to use to publish her blog back in 2001" - when Mena first came to my attention, she was just a neighbor in my VOX 'hood.
Completely ignorant of how big and exactly what Six Apart was, when I signed up to VOX in 2006, I had never heard of Mena Trott before. The ins and outs and who's who of blogging culture were completely new to me, and I had no idea of Mena's amazing start-up success or just how influential she was.
I noticed that people on VOX talked a lot about some woman named "Mena" and everyone seemed to want to comment on her blog posts and add her to their "neighborhood". I soon figured out that Mena was in fact someone called Mena Trott, and as it says in her short and sweet bio, she had "founded a blogging company" with her husband and had a "cute dog named Maddy". (This was back before she had a "wonderful daughter named Penelope".)
A few Google searches and Wikipedia entries later, I was all caught up on the world of Six Apart and Ben and Mena Trott, and was left feeling incredibly envious and impressed. (With a strong emphasis on envious.) Mena founded a blogging company, was invited to speak at different conferences like Les Blogs and TED, had tons of comments on her blog, and - to top it all off - had great hair and really cute H&M dresses. (Not to mention her fantastic halloween costumes.)
Heather B Armstrong, Diablo Cody - pre-Juno - and Mena Trott became my Triangle Of Blogging Inspiration. I wanted to be like them, blog like them, and be influential like them.
Sure Dooce was making serious bank off of ads back in 2006 and Diablo had a book deal (and would soon have an Oscar) but Mena was part of a really cool blogging company that she ran with her husband. I wanted to speak at TED. I wanted a cute office in San Francisco (and Tokyo and Paris) and a successful blogging company.
I wanted to be like Mike Mena.
Three years after first discovering her, I still admire and am influenced by Mena Trott. While there are plenty of business women in technology, female bloggers, and female business bloggers - Mena Trott is not only an entrepreneur and the co-founder and president of a successful start-up, but a designer, a blogger, a wife, a mom and a dog owner. She is diverse, creative, and has influenced and helped launch the careers of so many bloggers.
If Mena had never started blogging at Dollarshort.org, Ben never would have written Movable Type, and VOX never would have been created, and my life would have not turned out the way it has.
Mena Trott helped spark the idea in me that I could not only be a successful blogger, but a successful business woman in the blogging and digital media world.
Thank you, Mena Trott.
Now if only I had a cute dog and made great video blogs like this: