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Women in ICT - Gillian O'Neil

Gillian O'Neil | Thursday June 26, 2008



Gillian O’Neil is Managing Director of Moviecom.tv, the online TV channel for business. The Lanarkshire-based company is enhancing the way that companies communicate while providing the business community with a highly effective sales, marketing and lead generation tool.


Hi-Tech Scotland (HTS): Describe your role.

Gillian O’Neil (GO): I’m the Managing Director of the business but my core skills have always been in Sales, so I still spend a lot of time on the front-line working with existing clients and building new business. Unfortunately, as MD, I don’t get to concentrate of Sales exclusively. I’m also responsible for the financial planning, forecasting and planning the strategic growth of the company. It’s a mixed bag, but I’m well supported by three other co-directors who all have different strengths and skill sets.


HTS: When did you first become interested in technology as a career?

GO: I’m not sure that I ever made a conscious decision to choose a career in technology. I think, instead, I’ve been very lucky to be born on the cusp of the ‘technology era’ that we’re living through right now. I turn 40 this year, so from my 20s onwards I was working in services and marketing jobs where technology was being introduced rapidly. During the same time, of course, the Internet has developed into the most powerful distribution channel the world has ever seen. So, I think from the moment that I realised the potential power of the web as a business tool, I knew that technology would be a big part of any business I was involved with.

HTS: Do you think that being a woman has ever been an advantage or disadvantage to you in your career?

GO: I can think of specific instances where being a woman has been both an advantage and a disadvantage. I’m aware that when I’m networking in a male-dominated environment, being female is definitely an advantage in getting conversations going and connections made. The flip-side of that is that, if you are the only female in a business meeting or working as part of a male-dominated project team, sometimes you can be pushed out unless you’re prepared to act like ‘one of the boys’. Situations like that are few and far between these days, but I know from speaking to other female businesswoman that it can still happen. The key is simply not to let that kind of thing faze you – just get on with doing a great job.
The real difficulty for a woman is in successfully managing a career alongside raising a family and running a household. That is a massive challenge and, unfortunately, right now it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier for many women. If you are lucky, you have people around you to support you and I’m aware that I’ve always been fortunate in that respect.

HTS: What can be done to encourage more women to consider careers in technology?

GO: My office is predominately staffed by females and throughout my career that has often been the case. My background is in the marketing and media sectors which have always employed a lot of women, and those areas have developed side-by-side with the technology sector in recent years. Technology is so pervasive now that most people tend not to think of it as a male-dominated ‘engineering’ discipline anymore. If anything, the ICT industry should be thinking about appealing to women as individuals rather than assuming there is something they can do to appeal to “all women”.


HTS: What are the ‘hot’ topics or issues among your client base at the moment?

GO: I’m pleased to say that our core offering, online video production, couldn’t be much hotter right now. We work with clients across a real variety of sectors from property to recruitment to professional service providers. The common thread with our clients is that they all want to be the best in the sector and are always looking for new mechanisms to help them achieve that.


HTS: From your own perspective, what sorts of technology or application are likely to be most important over the next 5 years?

GO: The massive growth in social networking online is fascinating because it represents a whole new sphere of communication. The business world is currently trying to work out how to take best advantage of social networking, but it’s a thorny problem. From a confidentiality point of view, a social networking site is hardly the most secure place to discuss business. Likewise, using social networking for branding purposes raises problems for marketing people in terms of the control and measurability of campaigns.


HTS: Do you have any remaining ambitions – career-based or otherwise?

GO: I’m very focused on continuing to develop the Moviecom.tv platform and on growing the business internationally over the next few years. I genuinely love what I do for a living and can’t wait to get started each morning. That said, I wouldn’t mind getting home before 10pm at night!
On a personal note, one of the projects we’ve become involved in is the online broadcast of Homeless World Cup TV, a project created by Mel Young, who is also one of the founders of the Big Issue in Scotland. Moviecom.tv has made a commitment to the project and we are working on developing a Skills Transfer Programme that teaches non-athletic participants in the Homeless World Cup football tournament how to film, edit and upload video content to the Homeless World Cup TV channel. We hope to create a legacy of digital media production skills all across the world in some of its most disadvantaged communities.
A final madcap ambition of mine is to go into space! Who knows, maybe one day…

www.moviecom.tv

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