Meet Barbie, computer engineer

Although we mostly think about Barbie as a fun-time kind of doll -hanging around her dream house in her original zebra-striped bathing suit; heading out to a formal with a tuxedo’d Ken; cruising in her convertible with one of her gal-pals – pretty much for as long as there’ve been Barbies (and that would be since 1959), Barbie’s been a working girl.

Years ago, I bought a Dr. Barbie for a little girl as part of a program for making Christmas a bit cheerier for the children of prison inmates.

This Barbie was an OB-GYN who’d just delivered twins – they were part of the package. It was amazing to me that Barbie could make her way around the delivery room in her high-heeled mules, but then I recalled a surgical nurse I’d run into at one point. I was having a a biopsy, and the nurse who came in to get me prepped had fake eyelashes that stood out about 6 inches, and was wearing a pair of Barbie-shoes with heels that appeared to be about 6 inches high. Throughout my (benign, by the way) biopsy, I was in fear that she was going to break a heel while handing the doctor a scalpel. This didn’t happen, so I know that you can perform at least minor procedures while wearing heels. Presumably, the babies that Dr. Barbie delivered just popped right out for her.

Naturally, Barbie isn’t much fun without a few costume changes, so when I made my gift, I did spring for a fancy party dress and a few other things. Including a pair of flannel PJ’s, since role-model Barbie was going to come home from the ball alone and get into bed with a good book.

But, as so often happens in Pink Slip, I digress.

Today, we are here to celebrate Barbie’s latest career picks: computer engineer and anchorwoman. (Reported last week The Wall Street Journal, which also gets credit for the picture below. Access to the article may require a subscription. I’m sure the Barbie Businesswoman, MBA, subscribes!)

It seems that the marketers at Mattel decided to ask Barbie fans who hang out on Barbie.com what the next gig that career-changing Barbie might embark on.

Mattel gave them a choice of architect, anchorwoman, computer engineer, environmentalist and surgeon. All told, more than 600,000 votes were cast during a four-week period this past winter.

All good choices, or course.

Who wouldn’t want to have a Barbie with her t-square, designing a new Barbie dream house? And environmentalist Barbie taking on climate change pooh-poohers: you go, girl!  Barbie surgeon could have been packaged up with the game Operation. Instead of having a red-light bulb in the patient’s nose light up if, say, surgeon Barbie dropped its funny bone, the nose could glow pink.

It came down to two choices: computer engineer and anchorwoman. And two distinct voting camps.

Girls the world over overwhelmingly cast their ballot for anchorwoman Barbie—"not a surprise, as girls see Katie Couric and a lot of other female anchors," says Stephanie Cota, senior vice president of marketing for the Barbie brand.

Anchorwoman Barbie is a natural, combining the glam of TV with the GLAM of Barbie. Imagine Barbie interviewing Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Justin Bieber. What’s not to like?

But while the kids were getting their vote out, grown ups started voting for Barbie, computer engineer.

Female computer engineers who learned about the election launched a viral campaign on the Internet to get out the vote and ensure Barbie would join their ranks.

"Please help us in getting Barbie to get her Geek on!" came the appeal from the blog GeekGirlCamp.com.

As it turned out, Mattel had to play Electoral College here. The overall popular vote went to computer engineer Barbie. But the actually who-buys-Barbie vote went to anchorwoman Barbie.

Judiciously, Mattel went with both.

And, while there may not be many little girls clamoring for geeky-Barbie, I’m sure that computer engineer Barbie will be appearing on the cubicle shelves of techie women all over the place. Not to mention make it’s way onto the shopping list of software, hardware, QA, customer support, and all sorts of tech professionals who pick up computer engineer Barbie for their daughters and nieces.

Computer engineer Barbie hits the shelves this fall.

Smart marketing on Mattel’s part, no?