Hi. My name is Mollie Vandor, and I’m a stalker.

Mention Gina Bianchini’s name at any gathering of geeks and technophiles, and you’ll get the same reaction – respect, admiration and maybe even a touch of envy. As the co-founder of Ning, an Executive-In-Residence at the prestigious Andreessen Horowitz venture firm and the leading lady at social networking startup Mightybell, Bianchini has done what few folks — and especially few women — have been able to. She’s made a career out of being at the forefront of what’s next in technology, and done it all with an extremely high profile and an even higher level of respect from her peers.

Of course, Gina Bianchini is a natural role model for all women. But, for us tech geeks in particular, she provides a perfect case study in the kind of success that most of us dream about. And, in the pursuit of my own personal dreams, I’ve picked up a few extremely valuable lessons from following Gina Bianchini, courtesy of the very same social web she helped create.

1. Always Stay Ahead Of The Curve: Gina Bianchini is a master at the art of anticipating what’s next, and at getting there before anyone else does. A decade ago, she was at the forefront of the social media revolution, launching Ning the same year Facebook went live. Now, she’s the first to admit that social media is an oversaturated market, and that the revolutionary industry she helped to create is ripe for revolution itself. With MightyBell, Bianchini is looking to capitalize on the next generation of social – using the online experience to inspire offline experiences. And, once again she’s at the head of a trend that’s barely begun to take root for the rest of us.

2. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify: From co-founder to CEO, blogger to board member, Gina Bianchini always has her hands in a lot of proverbial pies. She’s been published everywhere from HuffPo to the New York Times, and worked on projects ranging from her current stint on the board of Scripps Interactive to a past life as a Financial Analyst. All of that experience adds up to a well-rounded resume that gives her the extra edge of wide-ranging experience, and keeps her — and her numerous passion projects — in the public eye to boot.

3. Choose Your Partner Wisely: From Harmonic Communications Mark Kvamme to Ning Co-Founder Marc Andreessen, Bianchini has always made it a point to work with people who complement her skills. In her own words, “When working with a co-founder, it helps to have the same core values and complementary skills. I know advertising and finance, and Marc is obviously strong in technology, among other talents. Neither of us wants the other’s job, there’s a lot of mutual trust, and we share the same approach to work.”

4. Perception Is Not Reality: This is a direct quote from Gina Bianchini herself, taken from an article she wrote for CNN disproving the point that you have to be a geeky guy to make it as a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur. In a nutshell, her argument is that the stereotypical geek-in-a-garage founder myth is just that — a myth. Sure, it rings true for the Zuckerbergs of the world. But, is just as easily disproven when one looks at Steve Jobs. Or Gina Bianchini for that matter. Both of whom stand as proof that the stereotypes don’t have anything to do with actual success. As she says in the article, “While it’s true that women don’t sit in the upper echelons of the corporate universe — and I’ll let others speculate on why that is — I know this about succeeding as a consumer Internet entrepreneur: The key is to focus on the data and bury the stereotypes that signal to women that the game is not for us.” There’s no data that says you have to fit a certain mold to make it big in this business, and no reason anyone with the right skills, smarts and savvy can’t follow in Bianchini’s forward-thinking footsteps.

5. Don’t Get Hung Up On Gender: One of the most valuable things I’ve seen Gina Bianchini reiterate time and again is the importance of removing gender from the entrepreneurial equation. In her words, “We’re not doing anyone any good by talking about some of the unique challenges of being a woman entrepreneur. If you’re a male entrepreneur, you’re faced with a certain set of challenges. If you’re female, you’re faced with a potentially different set of challenges. The most important thing you can do is say, ‘I don’t care what the challenges are, I’m going to tackle them, take them down, and keep going where I’m going. Don’t think about yourself as a woman entrepreneur. Think about yourself as an entrepreneur.”

 

Forget awards season. For LA techies, it looks like Caltech’s June commencement ceremony might be the hottest ticket in town, now that the Pasadena-based university has announced Elon Musk as the official commencement speaker.

Musk, who co-founded PayPal and is also the founder behind SpaceX and Tesla Motors, will be keynoting the school’s graduation ceremony on June 15th. According to SoCalTech, Musk will be discussing the ways ”brilliant, big ideas can and will have a positive impact in the world.”

Caltech President Jean-Lou Chameau said the university reached out to Musk because of his game-changing work. “Elon Musk is a visionary business leader and innovator who is spearheading revolutionary ideas in three global industries—automobiles, energy, and space exploration. He is a powerful proponent of science and technology, and will share with Caltech graduates his perspective on how their brilliant, big ideas can and will have a positive impact in the world,” Chameau said. ”Musk has demonstrated how talent, intelligence, and active leadership—notable traits that Caltech graduates also share—are vital to shaping the future of our world.”

SoCal Tech also pointed out that Musk is a great fit for Caltech thanks to one of his pursuits in particular — SpaceX. SpaceX develops commercial rockets, and is currently gearing up for its first mission to the International Space Station, to commence in February. Caltech runs the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which helped develop some of America’s first rockets.

Angelenos — and the world — can watch Musk talk about SpaceX and much more when he takes the stage on June 15, as Caltech live streams the ceremony on their website. No caps and gowns required.

Think of building a website like building a house.

There’s the engineers, who are akin to construction workers, actually putting the nuts and bolts of the structure together. The site’s designers are like decorators, making sure the house looks and feels put together and polished. And, the marketing team are the real estate agents, making sure the house attracts buyers — or, users — and driving up the house’s value as much as possible.

But, before any of that can happen, there has to be an architect. A person with the vision to plan the house out from studs to ceiling, and the project management skills to make that vision a reality. When building a website, that person is the Product Manager.

A lot of people don’t know exactly what a Product Manager does. Which is understandable, because a good Product Manager tends to do a little bit of everything. They’re involved in planning the site from a technical perspective, figuring out which features to pursue and which ones to punt on. They often wireframe the site, laying out all the elements according to the best practices of user experience,information architecture and the like.

And, since they know the product most intimately, they often tend to help out with marketing the site, speaking directly to users via copy and collateral, and helping the executive team formulate a strategic vision for the future.

A great Product Manager, like Google’s Marissa Mayer, Hunch’s Caterina Fake and Quora’s Sandra Liu Huang, has their hands in every little bit of the product – whether it’s the on-site experience or the way the product is presented at a conference or marketed in an ad. This is why you often see great Product Managers, like Marissa Mayer, go on to become great executives.

Product Managers are the ultimate advocates of the product — and by extension, the end user — above all else. And, like a great architect, they’ll fight tooth and nail to protect the integrity of the overall product vision.

That means that a typical Product Manager’s day might include everything from a business development meeting to a problem solving session with engineers. She could be looking at the birds’ eye view of the big picture one minute and conducting a microscopic examination of a single line of broken code the next.BusinessWeek detailed seminal Google Product Manager Marissa Mayer’s daily schedule which illustrates this point perfectly.

She jumps from design to business development, engineering to recruiting, all within a given day. That’s the beauty of being a Product Manager. You never get bored, because you’re never doing the same thing long enough to be. And, like an architect, you truly get to be involved with every step of the building process, from vision to execution.

Unlike an architect however, there’s no official schooling path to become a Product Manager. Well-known Product Managers come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Marissa Mayer and Leah Culver started off on the engineering side. Caterina Fake started her career as Art Director at Salon.com and she majored in English at Vassar. Sandra Liu Huang studied Economics and Management. I studied Film and Media and pre-law before helping to launch Ranker.com, which kickstarted my own career as a Product Manager.

Google has an Associate Product Manager role designed to help ease new graduates into the Product Manager position. But, if you’re not one of the lucky few to make it into that program, there are many other ways to become a product manager.

The best place to start is to begin developing your knowledge of the core competencies required of a good product manager:

• the best practices of user experience
• the basic tenets of website design
• a working knowledge of web development

These are not skills you necessarily need to learn in a classroom. There are plenty of online resources to get you started. A few great places to begin include Smashing Magazine, Stanford’s Engineering Everywhere Program, the Usability Professionals’ Association and Jakob Nielsen’s Useit.com. There are also some fantastic books out there, like Steve Krug’s user experience bible Don’t Make Me Think and Marty Cagan’s Inspired.

No matter how you choose to do your research, successful product managers all agree — the best way to become one of them is to take all that research and apply it to as many products and projects as possible. So go find a great idea and do your best to turn it into a great product.

The worst thing that can happen is that you walk away with the kinds of lessons you need to turn yourself into a great product manager, and your next product into a great success.