It's often the case that problems present us with a binary choice. If we take Option A, we do so at the expense of Option B. But not when it comes to gender diversity. Addressing the underrepresentation of women in tech presents no such zero-sum challenge. In fact, by building a more diverse sector everyone benefits - gender equality wins, and so does the bottom line. The evidence is now confirming what many have suspected for some time: more diverse teams perform better, and companies which fail to embrace diversity are likely to be left in their wake. "Given the higher returns that diversity is expected to bring, we believe it is better to invest now, since winners will pull further ahead and laggards will fall further behind," argued a 2015 McKinsey report, Diversity Matters. However, when it comes to how we inspire the next generation of women in tech, the solution is more complex. In an increasingly competitive job market, one would think that the range of career opportunities that the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) sector currently offers young women would cause a surge in interest. But the numbers entering the sector each year remain significantly below target. Statistics released by the Office for National Statistics in 2015 found that only 14.4% of the UK's STEM workforce is female.

Part of the problem lies in the way in which the industry is communicating with prospective female talent not just in what it is saying, but also regarding who is communicating this message, and how. What's the message? Last year, the humble hairdryer was propelled from mundane object to subject of global attention. It owed its new notoriety to IBM's now-scrapped #HackAHairdryer campaign. The campaign, which was supposed to spark a conversation about women in STEM by tackling misconceptions about gender and tech, encouraged women to post videos of hairdryers they had hacked. The company's motivation was commendable enough. However, IBM's decision to use a hairdryer out of any possible object also risked perpetuating the very stereotypes the campaign sought to tackle. "I leave hairdryer fixing to the men, I'm too busy making nanotech and treating cancer," tweeted one woman in tech. Hairdryer-gate holds within it an important lesson for all of us in STEM. It demonstrates how, if companies are to engage with women effectively and encourage them into STEM, they first need to understand their audience. Were there any women in the room when IBM approved #HackAHairdryer? This isn't a flippant question. Women remain underrepresented in tech companies, especially at management level. Often decisions about how to communicate with a predominantly female audience are taken by rooms dominated by male executives leading to unintended consequences. to its figures Consider Apple's Health Kit app, which was promoted as providing every test about your body you could ever need. Everything except anything related to periods, one of the most important aspects of women's health. Following criticism, the app was later updated to include period tracking. How did Apple let this happen? Were there no women on the app's engineering team? Ensuring that women are included in these kinds of decision-making processes isn't about tokenism. It's about delivering better products. And that means it's better for business, too. The medium is the message Having considered what kind of message the tech industry wants to convey to young women, the next question is how best to share it.