Today’s post was written by contributing writer Marie Williams.

It’s a heat wave in San Francisco, and today’s “3Q’s in 3Min” guest is guaranteed to turn up the heat.

Every Thursday, socialTNT channels the spirit of citizen journalism by putting bloggers, reporters, PR pro’s or anyone with something to say about social media in front of the camera for a short, three minute interview. In addition to helping PR peeps pitch these individuals more effectively, the videos are meant to encourage dialog between reporters, PR/communications practitioners and marketers on the future of media.

A couple of weeks ago socialTNT attended Girls In Tech‘s Femme-Power roundup, a gathering for professional women and female leaders. While there, we had the pleasure of speaking to BusinessWeek’s Sarah Lacy. In today’s “3Q’s in 3Min,” Sarah shares her thoughts on issues affecting women in the business world, and explains how women are selling themselves short.

Today marks a huge achievement in Sarah’s career, the publishing of her book on web 2.0 moguls, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.” You can find Sarah in her “Valley Girl” column in BusinessWeek or as a co-host on the recently launched Tech Ticker spot on Yahoo! Finance.

Sarah also achieved brief notoriety last March from her now infamous–and highly played-out–Mark Zuckerberg interview at SXSW. Whether you like her or not, Sarah is an important female figure in the tech industry and provides invaluable insight into the conundrum many of us face as professional women.

When it comes to the workplace, Sarah says women don’t believe in themselves enough and should be more aggressive and self-promotional. As a woman, I tend to agree with her. I often struggle with tooting my own horn or spotlighting my capabilities. Sarah sees this as the reason why women don’t have as large a footprint in most industries.

Take the PR/marketing industry. Long considered to be a woman-dominated profession, but when you look at the loudest voices in the blogosphere, women make up a much smaller percentage. Off the top of my head, I can list 5 well-known PR/marketing blogstresses: Kami Huyse, Susan Getgood, B.L. Ochman, Yvonne Divita, and Lauren Vargas. On AdAge’s Power 150, Kami Huyse could only find 20, as she points out in a post highlighting the “top 20 women” on the list

Kami’s post, written nearly a year ago, found that of the Power 150 in 2006, only 13 percent were women. No offense, fellas, but that number is a tad disconcerting. In an industry with approximately 70 percent women, men take nearly 90 percent of web-based thought leadership. This highlights the need for events like Girls in Tech to help encourage and nurture the growing confidence of the female workforce.

In the video, below, Sarah explains how the tech industry hasn’t changed for women during her 10 years in journalism, and discusses her difficulty finding stellar women in the tech/business world.

Do you think women need to be more aggressive? What prevents women from becoming more powerful in the boardroom? Will women ever step out of mens’ shadows to play a larger role in business? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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[The above photo, “Sarah Lacy on Sarah Lacy” by Brian Solis, is used under Creative Commons]

Related posts:

1. “3sday’s 3Q’s in 3 Min: Jon Fine, BusinessWeek”
2. “3sday’s 3Q’s in 3Min: Paull Young, Young PR Blog”
3. “3Q’s in 3Min: Joel Postman, Socialized”