[photo taken at a Women 2.0 Startup Weekend]
After voicing my opinion on the maleness of yet another tech conference, I ran into a friend of mine at the afterparty who told me, “I nearly picked a fight with you. That stuff is getting so boring.” And upon getting back to my hotel room to check the conversation on twitter, several others suggested the same.
Yes. Boring. I’m bored of it, too. I would love us to move onto another subject. 100% agreed. But the fact of the matter is that these boring complaints actually lead to action.
It was boring when people complained about an early Future of Web Apps being an entirely male lineup, but since then, the Carsonified folks have seriously focused on making sure that their conferences feature more women, which ended up attracting more women as audience members. It was boring when, many years ago, people complained about the SXSW Interactive speakers being mostly men, but since then, Hugh Forrest and his team have taken more time to make sure women appear on stage, leading to a HUGE female attendance. It’s been boring to complain to multiple conferences over the years, which led to more women on stage and in the audience. And it’s really boring that the growing exposure of women in technology has led to the attraction of more young women to the technology space.
Listen. I don’t like to continue to point out the conferences, articles, lists and such that lack the presence of women (or are weak in their research), but everytime I do (or someone else does), it gets a little better. Organizations like Women 2.0, She’s Geeky, Women Who Tech, Women in Technology, Geek Girl Dinners and articles like Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology and Brian Solis’ article showing how women define the social networks have emerged because of the growing conversation around the issue. And because of these articles and organizations, more women have been encouraged to strike out and do their own startups. And, from what I hear, more young women are being drawn to technology as a career.
This is far from boring to me. This is exciting and awesome. So, we keep on bringing up the boring blah blah when we see exclusion because, well, it is leading towards a pretty awesome future where I’m hoping to see a 50/50 split of men and women on stage, in articles, talking about tech, creating startups, getting funding, participating in open source and making the future of the web inclusive. I, personally, look forward to the day where I never have to bring up the subject again.
And I know there are many additional issues of diversity in the technology space. It’s dominated by white heterosexual males, many of them young. The web user population is far more diverse than that (majority of users are female in North America and the largest population on the web is Asian), so it’s fairly logical to say that those designing the online experience should reflect that diversity. Until that day comes, I will continue to be boring and encourage everyone else to join me in being boring, too.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Tara
Great post and points…think we as members of the community, conference organizers and more need to do a better job on the inclusion of women who get it as well as do an exemplary job of highlighting the successes females have made within the space…
Thanks for raising the discussion and pressing the issues!
December 10th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Fantastic write-up Tara. You are awesome and I’m so proud to fight these battles with you and many other kick ass women.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Thanks so much for this post. Was one of the first things we tweeted about when you gazed the scene at Le Web.
Boring: Because Our Radical Intuition Never Gives-up:)
Here’s to being boring…For your example and all you are doing and all everyone is doing to create opportunities for all…thanks so much…
December 10th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Tara – thank you for being “boring”. I was so happy to see you on the schedule at WordCamp09 man,man,man,man,man,TARA,man,man,man,man. I personally thought you were the best speaker there.
I’ve been observing the old boys club with social networking and wondering what to do about it. I figure the best thing to do was to be a successful woman in the field.
While there are lots of great male techies out there that I respect a little bit of masculine/feminine balance in the world always does some good.
Thank you for all that you do.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Thanks for this, Tara. When we founded DC Web Women in 1995, we certainly weren’t expecting that in 2009 we’d still be blah blah-ing. It’s amazing that an industry that adapts and innovates so quickly can move at glacial speed on this particular issue!
The stats are clear: Women are engaged in this space. And they are already creating the majority of online content. Let’s create a virtuous circle that cycles them to the front of the room, too.
Brava, Tara, and see you in 2010!
@shellie
December 10th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Keep being boring, i say.
i Cheer every time i see your posts on this topic, and I’m sorry i’ve not been more vocal to express that before.
I know of SO many talented women who don’t even bother to submit conference topics because they don’t know the organizing committee. They give up or don’t try because they think they’re not wanted. All great ideas, regardless of source should be found, discovered, cultivated, and brought to life. all communities bring more of the same and so when we end up not knowing women to speak, etc they end up not coming, not engaging the topic, not adding their unique value add. In other words, we lose valuable voices and valuable talent when we don’t pay attention and look for that talent or voice. That’s the loss for everyone.
December 10th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Yes!! Totally feel you on this. Was just at a tech/developers/entrepreneurs event in NYC tonight. Of about 70 people there, there were about 5 women. Not kidding. I counted. Was joking with some dudes that the only reason I come to these things is to even out the ratio. Ridiculous and yes, the subject gets a little boring but definitely worthwhile bringing up. GIRLPOWER!!! (kidding, sort of)
December 10th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
You’re right on both counts Tara — it’s boring that we have to keep focusing on how women are under-represented in tech, but we absolutely have to do it. If we don’t fight this battle, who will?
December 10th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Well, I’m tired of going to conferences planned by women and seeing mostly men on stage. I get why men trust men, but I’d think we women could at least reach out and find other women to fill those spots.
I’d also like to see more faces of folks doing the work I want to know about than the sound of yet another boss or manager who can’t answer my questions. Gov2.0 camp had a great set of presentations from women, men, older, younger, black and white. We seem to do a better job on diversity when we the audience plans the conference. Perhaps we just need more unconferences. Or at least, that’s how i’d vote if this were up for a vote.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I see with hope the role of women in Technology for the future. I’m organizing Lima Valley (a local start up series of meetings) and yet this year most of our speakers, presenters and moderators have been men. But on the other side when I want to learn about technology and the effect of it on society i turn to Danah Boyd,Ginna Trapani or Amber Naslund. Needless to say that the blog that inspired me to change my career path from a job in banking to one focused on technology was this one, and then your book contributed to my learning and motivation to make the change. Women have a huge role on technology and are claiming it more and more and I think it’s great because startups need diversity. I consider that having a woman in my team is basic to have a complete perspective of what we want.
I bet that as I have been inspired by women in tech many others have been to. So it’s the right thing that women have more participation on conferences, because you’re truly making a huge difference.
Of course men have important things to share too. Other part of my inspiration has been Gary Vaynerchuk and others. I hope women keep claiming their position on conferences and that more conferences include female speakers in the future. It’s good that you post it because this way organizers can realize what they need to do.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Bravo Tara. While I am not in the technology sector, I am a Women’s Success Coadh. ~ I have been learning that women are not being heard in many sectors. ~ Cultivating and nurturing diversity seems in order.
Than you for all you do. Keep being ‘boring’. Love it!
December 10th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
It’s not just boring, it’s also exhausting! Here’s to you and to the rest of us who keep risking being called boring thanks to our efforts to build a better community. As a conference organizer, I take the responsibility seriously.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
You know, I’d fall over in a bored stupor if this weren’t so danged important. It seems that the more prestigious the conference or the higher the cost of entry, the more narrow the speaking field is. And when women do speak, it’s shocking (to me) how they are treated, from introductions like Chris Anderson’s comment about trepidation over inviting “another female physicist” to the 2008 TED stage to the disturbing sexism in the danah boyd twitterwall incident. If I recall the stat I read today correctly, LeWeb had 143 people speak and 7 were women. For women make up only 5% of its speakers is inexcusable in my opinion. I’m curious about the other dimensions of difference represented (or, more likely, not represented) among the 143.
If I were running a conference with so little speaker diversity, I’d be making damned sure my selection committees were themselves diverse and that they fully understand the importance of bringing different voices and perspectives. I’d be looking at my selection practices and the way I solicited speakers to figure out how my (or the organization’s) hidden biases might be skewing results. And more than anything, I’d be very nervous about the ability of my conference to remain successful and relevant when its voice is culled from such a narrow portion of the population.
Thanks for continuing the conversation.
December 10th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Not long ago I was called a “rogue instigator for speaking my mind, at which point I though of Miss Rogue and was instantly flattered. Maybe boring is the new rogue. If it takes beating a dead horse to inspire change then I will happily embrace “boring.”
Thank you for speaking your mind and standing behind your convictions. That is what makes you a role model that encourages and empowers women in tech.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Pssst here in MSP we are #chainreact! Our woman for the most part are equals or for the most part leading the way in our agencies (top thru bottom), firms, PR, and corps. I think our community just like people that can get things done and build solid relationships along the way!
Selfishly I pay real close attention to this and having a strong intelligent collaborative wife and a daughter we are raising to be anything she wants to be when she grows up, I am “pig committed!”
December 10th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Tara, you are awesome. Keep on being “boring.” I, too, look forward to the day when we don’t have to bring up diversity anymore.
December 11th, 2009 at 3:20 am
Hi Tara,
Thank you for being boring. If that’s what it takes for us to move forward then so be it. Next year I’d like to start attending some of those conferences and I will be among the non-majority group. There is a social network The Glass Hammer Network http://network.theglasshammer.com/ for women, which I have recently joined. They will be hammering away until we are closer to parity. Avil Beckford
December 11th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Here is one word I hate: “sausagefest”. Why? Because that is what a lot of tech events are. I am sick of it. Bring on the smart, lively, dynamic, entrepreneurial, successful, eloquent WOMEN. In droves. Great post and thanks.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:59 am
I do find it interesting that you’re writing about this problem at LeWeb, a European conference, at the same time that, in the U.S.A., many are citing statistics of women in government and executive roles as being far behind what’s happening in Europe. Since some European countries have legislated equality in the boardroom and government, they’ve obviously increased female participation in those roles, but that doesn’t mean equality happens everywhere else.
Thus, I continue to see our lack of women in tech as a societal issue, which means that we will need to continue to speak up in these circumstances and point out that we’re not being invited to the table. If people are being bored by people remarking on the lack of women, then there’s an easy fix: INVITE THEM. Duh. (Isn’t that the first rule of influence, with anything, anyway?)
Thanks, Tara!
December 11th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Hallelujah and yes indeed! Thanks so much for this post. The only people who find this topic boring are the ones who don’t want to hear it.
December 11th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Then it follows that the next conference should feature an Asian Female from North America, in order to cover more than one demographic.
December 11th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Let me know when we start kvetching about how there are no African American speakers, or Hispanic speakers. We should start harassing conference organizers and magazines to start featuring them for no reason other than their race as we do now by gender. That’s called a quota. Is it as equally rewarding knowing you are speaking at an event purely BECAUSE you are a woman? And that the organizers picked you because they felt compelled to because of the bad PR they’d receive if they did not select a woman? I would like to think most people, regardless of gender, would want to be selected on their own merit.
The people organizing these events are not out to push women out of the technology sphere.
December 11th, 2009 at 8:43 am
This is good discussion. Every time we do an open call on Download Squad we wind up with a very male response group. I lucked out a few years ago, finding Christina Warren (who has gone on to Mashable now, and they have an excellent mix of genders, I think). But it seems like the people who hound us the most to become tech *writers* are the dudes. Not sure what to do about that!
December 11th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Great point of view! Boring but so stimulating!
I was at LeWeb, and you can’t figure out how much I wish I get this damned good idea and launch my company, just to be on stage next year!
December 11th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Keep on telling the truth1
December 11th, 2009 at 10:33 am
Much as I love the spirit and intention of this post, I will be equally boring by voicing the same old ongoing concerns I’ve always had about this topic. To ask for more diversity == good. To expect a 50/50 gender balance at all tech events == bad. A 50/50 split will never (to me) mean that we (women) have “succeeded”, because it will most likely be artificially contrived. As would a 50/50 spilt of men/women at a crafter’s conference (or for that matter, a professional conference for nurses).
If the goal of an event is to talk about social implications of technologies where half the users are women, I agree with you — it’s unproductive (at best) to have such an unbalanced list of presenters. But some of the events you’ve mentioned are aimed more at developers.
I’m not an expert–or even knowledgeable– on women in tech, so this is just my opinion as a long-time female programmer/developer, and an even longer-time conference attending junkie. And though I realize it’s a naive view to have, I *do* cringe when I feel I’m being sought out/asked to speak *because* they’re trying to fill their female quota. I don’t know what the answer is, but pushing quotas is not it. However, raising awareness as you and others have — and hammering conference hosts to look deeper and work harder? That’s definitely a good thing and it seems you have been successful at creating positive change.
I just don’t want what began as a useful course-correction (i.e. “let’s get more women speakers”) to further the very problem we’re trying to correct — LESS respect for women in tech.
The majority of speakers at the majority of events are NOT invited keynoters. They are the people who submit proposals, actively seek out events, attend professional events *before* trying to present at them, and become part of the community they’re trying to influence. They lay a foundation over time, as a professional in their field. I do accept that women may not want to attend events that have few female speakers or attendees, but that’s an issue that will NOT be solved simply by adding more female presenters.
I’d love to see the stats/evidence that shows SXSWi has more female attendees *because* more females were added to the speaker rosters. I simply don’t believe that’s an accurate description of the system dynamics behind SXSWi having a high percentage of female attendees (or speakers, for that matter). That event first emerged to support a very different world/time of interaction design, pre-WWW.
I could be wrong — it’s just my wild-ass reckoning from being in that space since the very first SXSWi. And if indeed the addition of more female presenters can be proven to be the cause for the high percentage of female attendees, that would be extremely helpful/useful info, but I haven’t seen the hard-core evidence of cause/effect for that.
I’ll continue to offer my same boring suggestion that women in tech are far better served by working their way *up* to presenting at tech events, first by participating in those events most closely tied to their profession. If we don’t value what’s achieved/learned/gained by the attendees who PAY for these events, why bother trying to present at them? We disrespect the paying attendees when we expect to present at events we wouldn’t bother spending our own time and money to attend. And I don’t believe the fix is simply putting more women on the roster (though it often can/does have a positive effect)… it’s more complex than that.
As developers, we keep beating the drum about the importance of understanding our customers… including being IN the target audience we serve. Women — or any group — that does not spend time being a paying customer (i.e. an attendee) of a professional event is not in a good position to understand what it means to speak to those attendees. We rail against the organizers, we rail against the all-male speaker rosters, but the people most lost in these discussions are the MOST important people: the paying attendees.
And while a more diverse roster will — in general — make for a much better learning experience for the attendees, their needs are by far the most important in this discussion. Far more (in my naive opinion) than the needs of people trying to further their career and raise awareness of women by being in the spotlight on stage. I realize it’s not an either/or… just providing more POV as a representative of The Audience.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:53 am
Addition: though I do always argue this same (boring) point on the where-are-the-women thing, I wanted to mention for those who don’t know me– I believe in The Smackdown Model of learning. In many cases, our brains “grow” by being forced to consider opposing views of the same topic. Given that most of the comments here were in 100% agreement of the post, I figured it was a great place to paint another picture.
Missrogue is one of the imperceptibly small number of people (and places) I trust enough to feel safe doing this. Whether here or on Twitter, I’ll post arguments just to see where the edges are, and Tara (and her gazillion smart followers) always end up stretching my brain in new and wonderful ways. Thanks
December 11th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Just wanted to chime in with 3 cheers for Tara staying on top of this ongoing “boringness” as well as applaud Kathy’s poignant counterpoint. I’ve seen positive changes since folks like you have tackled this issue head-on. And I am looking forward to a time when we can take for granted that the best tech (or science or any other field for that matter) conferences have the best voices available regardless of age, gender, or race. I don’t want my daughter to have to jump through the same hoops. I’m disappointed that I have to jump through them myself, quite frankly.
December 11th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
You Rock! Keep it up and be boring! Every wonder if anyone is really listening?
December 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Those who call this topic boring are those who like the situation the ways it is I think. This isn’t boring at all.
I’m a 27 year old male… and one who is gay and black. I know I don’t always see great representations at conferences that span technology, marketing and video games which is something I’m hoping to change next year with a few speaking gigs. We do need more diversity and it’s only going to happen if we talk about it.
December 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Although I really wanted to keep this discussion away from anything that smacks of ‘tokenism’ or ‘affirmative action’, it has been raised by Kathy, Drake and Matches Malone, so I will address it here. I, in no way, shape or form, would want any conference, journalist or other way of giving exposure to be about just filling up numbers. Never. I was recently told by a conference organizer that he was creating a ‘women’s track’ and wanted me to keynote it. My first thought was, “Wait a minute. I should be keynoting because I deliver great content and am a good speaker, not because I’m a woman.” Ugh. It made me feel even MORE marginalized.
But the truth of the matter is that most conference organizers don’t look very hard for their speakers. I’d love to do a study for how much effort conference organizers on average put into their operations (venue, food, etc) vs. curating the content. For me, a conference that puts thought into their speakers shows. Conferences like An Event Apart, TED, Thinking Digital, PopTech, etc. leave a huge impact and have people raving about them all year long. And it wasn’t because they sat down to fill a quota, it’s because they thought hard about the diversity of the content. Are the speakers all going to say the same thing? Or are we going to have opposing views? What about voices from other industries that could really inform the discussion to move forward? And without even trying, these conferences have more women, more non-Americans and more people from a great diversity of cultural and educational backgrounds. And they stand out.
Surely, there is room in this world for conferences to be just about the social part of of a conference – who cares about the content if you have the right people in the audience sort of thing. But even then, who wants the audience to be homogenous? THAT’s boring to me.
But at the end of the day, what I was trying to point out above is that the voicing of complaints re: lack of women at conferences is actually increasing the visibility, getting conference organizers to think beyond their circle of friends to find great speakers, which is leading to a growing interest from women to go into tech in the first place. And I like that movement.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
It’s somewhat the nature of the beast, but I am with you (and many of the smart commenters) that it doesn’t have to be status quo. There was a very cool, very expensive tech conference held in Denver recently — with a slide that said, “The Brotherhood of D—g” projected on the wall. I mean, great guys — but disappointing. A woman with some social media cred complained privately to me, and I asked why she didn’t make a bigger stink; she said she couldn’t really afford backlash, that conferences were her primary source of income. I think I was the only one who even tweeted about it.
It made me reflect that in some ways, the nature of social media lends itself to presenter picks that are broad but not deep — sort of the people equivalent of shortened URLS — which may not lend itself to people not immediately in the Stanford/Boulder/UT/MIT and VC kinds of networks, who just happen to be primarily men. Is it about trust and known quantities? About projecting unease with a woman?
Not sure. We know it can change — look at the legal profession for a start. But in any case, I am really thankful for your blahblahblah returning to this point, and to Kathy for being out there too.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
When I was on Navy active duty, I vividly remember going to a ship’s Change of Command where the outgoing Commanding Officer and the incoming Commanding Officer were both women.
You can’t imagine the extraordinary impact this had on me and other young Navy women.
Further, both women were wearing ceremonial swords, which were forbidden to women (“carrying arms”) when I first joined the Navy.
So, keep pushing. Because it is noticed. And it matters. And if you put me on a dais or podium, I promise to kick ass, even without any weaponry.
December 11th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I knew they were men and white (and asian), but is heterosexuality so dominant? More than the statistical average at large? I doubt it. (Good post, though)
December 11th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
What made this issue really hit home to me was Oct’s StartUp School. A couple of the presenters twittered that night that they were surprised that they saw so few women – one said he had counted only about 10. That’s 10 out of 750 attendees. Attendees that had to apply to be there.
My answer – that out of 11 speakers (all very good), none were women. Not one. Also – during the application process, did any of the organizers notice that almost no women were attending? Did that say something about the process? I can understand that men may outnumber women in the area of entrepreneurship (and that should be reflected in the speaker ratio) – but there are more than 10. I believe that.
Agreed that this is a complex issue – the opportunity has to be the right one especially (as Kathy says) for paying attendees of both sexes, especially as people are being held more accountable for each dollar spent on their travel budgets. But there are still some glaring WTF examples of women not being involved events where the conversation could absolutely use all types of viewpoints and experience-sharing. And everyone loses in that case.
December 11th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Tara – I have been watching the conversation and i think we perhaps could learn that when we make this a women’s issue, we miss the larger opportunity — what we want to change (what you so aptly name a movement) is the click-ish-ness of the same people talking to the same people and thus leading to a smaller conversation. In solving problems or creating new products, it’s often a matter of the multiplicity of angles to see the situation more fully to solve it more fully. It’s richness of conversation we seek. It’ll of course take a change in conference organizers but I suspect that each of us will need to change also, to figure out how we can be a part of that movement.
December 12th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I’m one of the co-organisers of Webstock, which a web conference in New Zealand.
I think Kathy’s absolutely right that the most important people at a conference are the paying attendees. The most important thing for a conference organiser is to provide value to them. One of the key ways of doing that is through the quality of the speakers. (There’s lots of other factors too, but not as relevant to this discussion).
Appropriate quality is something I’ve been thinking of in relation to this discussion. What’s an appropriate quality speaker for TED is different than for Webstock and different than for, say, a local Drupal developers’ conference. You’re not born a great speaker – you get to be one through hard work and practice and speaking lots. In choosing a speaker for Webstock, we take a lot of heed as to how good a speaker is – we need evidence or reports that they speak/present well. And this is because we want to provide the best possible experience to those attending Webstock. Related point here – if you want to speak at conferences of a certain level, speak at lots of events at a slightly lower level. Get experience. Get noticed.
Now the call we make for Webstock in terms of speaker quality is one that appropriate for Webstock. Other conferences and events will have different levels of “appropriate quality”. It’s not that one is more “right” than another, it’s that a call should be made for each particular conference.
Why is this relevant here then? One of the arguments conference organisers use to explain lack of female speakers is the quality one – “We look for the best quality speakers. We’re blind as to gender.”
There’s *some* truth to that. You owe it to your attendees to provide the best “appropriate quality” speakers you can. So don’t necessarily dismiss this argument as elitist or unreconstructed.
Having said that, lots of times this argument does seem to be used as way of justifying lazy, irresponsible and indefensible speaker choices. As a conference organiser, you have an opportunity to surprise, delight, challenge and confront your attendees. Speaker choice is a primary means of doing that. It’s hard to do with easy, safe choices of the same people.
Meh. I fear I’m not making a coherent argument. Here’s a few observations from a conference organiser’s point of view:
- We *agonise* over speaker choices. And yes, we’re always very aware of the number of women speakers we have.
- Sometimes the people you want just aren’t available. Possibly it’s harder for women with families to travel to other side of the world.
- Not a huge number of people write to us suggesting themselves as speakers, but those that do are almost exclusively men.
- You can, and I think should, take risks with speaker choices. Our first conference featured a speaker no one had really heard of – one Kathy Sierra
For our next conference, we’ve made a decision to pretty much have speakers who’ve never spoken at Webstock before.
Conclusions? If you want to speak, you’ve got to start speaking somewhere, and speak lots and get noticed. But also, call out conferences where the gender ratio is unjustifiable, or where the experience provided doesn’t meet your expectations.
And apologies for rambling! But hopefuly worthwhile to have a viewpoint from a conference organiser.
December 12th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Changing a culture is a long-term commitment. We work against long-ingrained habits of thought, some conscious, many not. We work against the interests and energies of people who imagine us to be a threat. But still we continue. You give me hope, as do the many women who persevere. And, little by little, we succeed. Almost everything yields to persistence.
December 12th, 2009 at 8:28 am
I totally relate to this post. I am a regular on the local speaking and panel circuit and often am the only woman represented. Also, the other night our local technology group had a mixer with, you guessed it….only two women there. Not exactly a great opportunity for the geeky guys to meet women!
Let me also qualify that I am not tech geek per se but run in those circles. I don’t know what the answer is. I think awareness is definitely the first step.
One thing I wonder is…do conference planners have a mandate for gender balance on their speaking circuits and panels? Are all speakers being offered travel stipends?
Women should be more vocal about being included, so thanks for writing this.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
My best friend is a public speaker. She talks about neuromarketing and nonverbal communications. Lately, she has been very careful about which conferences she speaks at, mostly because she has issues with the backchannel and how it influences the audience. Not her, but the audience at large and their brains. After watching the comments about Violet Blue’s speech on the web (many of which were like @fdevillamil’s who said “@violetblue is not the sexiest person on earth. That may explain why she needs robots to have sex… #leweb.”) I wonder how conferences are going to attract good female speakers like my friend and other women who don’t need to put up with the drama.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:55 am
@Molly – you make an EXCELLENT point about the back channel. Those comments require an ability to not feel emotional pain from being slaughtered onstage. Back at Web 2.0 Expo in NYC when danah boyd was completely shredded for reading from her paper (the shredders weren’t patient enough to stop tweeting awful things about her and just listen to the awesome content), she reacted to it amazingly. But danah has years and years of speaking experience now. She’s had good days and bad days and has enough momentum to not give up altogether because she had a bad experience. But if that was me in my early days of speaking, better believe I wouldn’t do it again. Yikes.
December 13th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I have to say that the “We don’t sacrifice quality for diversity” is one of the more insulting arguments that gets perpetuated by conference organizers (or those defending them), as though the two were mutually exclusive. Most people, including Tara, that I see writing about this topic indicate that they miss seeing women, including specific women (or people of color etc. etc.) who they *know* would be qualified and competent to speak. To turn that into an argument for tokenism is disingenuous.
Also, re: Kathy’s question above. I had direct conversations back in 2006 with SXSW’s Hugh Forrest, where he indicated that he believed that purposefully increasing the diversity of their speaking roster had direct impact on attendance. Since then I’ve been a member of the SXSW programming advisory committee, and diversity (across many dimensions, not just gender) is a stated goal. I think Hugh has been pretty open about that stated goal and that there are benefits that ensue.
Tara, as you know I’ve written on this topic many times, and I confess the boredom has gotten to me. I rarely do it anymore. I’m glad when I see that not everyone has allowed themselves to be as overtaken by the ennui as I!
December 13th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Late to the party. As usual.
Listen. This is an important topic to some people. It’s not to others. Either you care about diversity onstage, or you don’t. But, folks, seriously. No matter which side of the fence you’re on, nobody wants to listen to a bad speaker. No one wants to be seen only for their gender or skin color. And nobody wants to lose conference registrants because nobody recognizes anyone on the speaking roster.
For what it’s worth, I care about diversity onstage because a) it ensures a wide range of perspectives are represented and considered, b) it invites new female and minority role models to emerge for students and young professionals.
That said, I very much respect all of the folks sharing their different perspectives here, largely because I’ve been in most of their shoes. I’ve been a conference-attending, speaker-wannabe, totally deifying the “inside circle” of high profile speakers. I’ve been a conference organizer, leading the programming efforts for http://mima.org (now the largest association of its kind in the country). I’ve been the ambitious professional who decides to step up and talk about what she knows best, even though she’s not sure other people will agree. I’ve submitted proposals to–and straight-up suggested myself for–national conferences.
Based on my own experiences, then, here’s what I’ll contribute to this blah-blah-blah:
First: In order to make money, conference organizers need to book recognized speakers to attract paying attendees. And, because the majority of speakers today are men, the majority of recognized speakers are men. Today, at this moment, this is the math.
If conferences organizers are, in fact, committed to diversity onstage, they can start doing something about it (see: Carsonified). Reach out to other conference organizers for ideas. Ask for suggestions from their attendees. Do not expect or promise overnight success. But try, try again.
Second: Recognized speakers can take responsibility for seeking out, encouraging, mentoring, and representing promising women or minority speaker-wannabes. It’s the people already on the circuit who most often can help inexperienced speakers win speaking opportunities. That’s what happened to me.
Finally: wWmen and minority speakers who want to seek out speaking opportunities but don’t know how (or are afraid to, or are procrastinating) need to step up and figure it out. Yeah, it can be scary. But if you enjoy or think you’d enjoy public speaking, GET OUT THERE AND DO IT. Find out how proposals get submitted and considered. Walk up to other speakers and ask for tips. Go to Toastmasters. Speak locally. Bring the awesome.
I’m now lucky to be an invited/featured speaker at several 2010 conferences here and in Europe. I make a point of suggesting strong women speakers to conference organizers when I can. And I’m committed to working with other women–women who want to speak, women I *know* have something to say, but aren’t quite sure how to say it, in story or onstage–to help them develop and promote their speaking skills.
If you care about diversity onstage, no matter where you stand, you can do something about it. If you don’t, then don’t do anything except attend the conferences you want to attend.
And, of course, we’ll keep talking.
December 13th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
In order to have more women speak at conferences on tech, we need more women in tech. It’s a big problem. The percentage of women going into tech streams at the post secondary level had stayed static for almost 30 years and is only now beginning to rise — probably partly because of the women on stage at conferences and partly because of the social web. But probably not because someone thought of making iPods pink and definitely not because we are fond of telling little girls that they can do anything boys can do.
Girls are still dropping math and science before ninth grade, which is why we have to get to them early.
I think the solution lies in making technology love girls, rather than the other way around. By that I mean, technology has to do the things that girls want to do.
I have the teeniest of projects in that vein; a web series for tween girls that shows them how to do things girls want to do with their computers. It’s called Hailey Hacks and in each of the episodes we’ve released thus far Hailey shows other girls her age how to do things like create an wishlist online and send it to your parents, customize a Google map for a school project or pull an April Fools prank with your computer. (http://www.youtube.com/haileyhacks)
My mother was having a discussion very much like this one when she was my age. I’m hoping that my daughter never will.
December 13th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
“First: In order to make money, conference organizers need to book recognized speakers to attract paying attendees.”
I would respectfully submit that, first, this is a sweeping statement and entirely depends on the event in question. In 2009 BlogHer, SXSW Interactive and the Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration had banner years and experienced significant growth. I don’t think it was because of recognized speakers, do you? I would guess that SXSW sold hundreds of tickets this year before announcing their first speaker. I don’t have to guess about BlogHer. We haven’t announced any speakers yet, and we have sold almost half of our attendee tickets…eight months out.
But my second thought is that, like Kathy’s question about SXSW above: I’d like some data. I’d like to have one conference organizer come forward and present the numbers on the year that they prioritized a diverse roster and couldn’t sell tickets. I have a completely different view. BlogHer has a goal for each annual conference to feature 80% new (to BlogHer) voices. Most years that means at least 80 new speakers. If just 3 or 4 people from each new speaker’s community decides to attend, there’s growth built right in.
I personally think it’s an urban myth, or perhaps a scary campfire story…because I don’t think enough organizers have tried it to make the contention
December 13th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Thank you so much for jumping in Elisa! SO glad you are here!
I would also add to the pot of amazing conferences that TED – a prestigious conference people clamor to get into to pay $6000! – doesn’t announce their speakers AT ALL before the tickets are sold out. And then when you go, probably 95% of the speakers are people the attendees have never even heard of. Now, all of the talks are compelling and interesting because, well, they pick people doing cool stuff and then help each of the presenters create a great presentation (and practice and coach, etc.).
I would also add that I’ve been to well over 100 conferences over the past 3-4 years, many that have pretty poor speakers, some that have so-so lineups, but all that end up selling out nicely. In fact, some conferences where they’ve had big headliners have flopped. Like the New Yorker Conference.
I agree with Elisa. The content is really important and, as Kathy says earlier, the attendees are who are #1, but that doesn’t mean big headliners. That means really interesting content that makes people think. And talk. And inspires. And teaches. And you don’t need a headliner for that. You need people who know their stuff and are doing cool shit. And I know OODLES of people outside of the same old same olds that are doing this.
December 14th, 2009 at 12:26 am
I think it’s really hard to generalise from conference to conference. TED, I would suggest, is a complete outlier. Because of their (well-deserved) reputation, they don’t need to list speakers in order to sell out. That is NOT the same for most other conferences.
Speaking again from my own experience, many conference attendees need to present a business case to their employer in order to attend. Being able to say that a recognised speaker in the field is speaking helps with that.
This is not to say you need all headliners. I’d generally argue that the speakers people get most out of are those still doing stuff, generally people for who speaking is a sideline.
But all this varies from conference to conference. If you’re a conference with a good reputation, you can afford to take more “risks” with speakers – those coming have some trust in your judgment. If you’re starting a conference, though, good luck trying to make it sustainable with a lot of speakers no one has heard of.
@Tara says: “That means really interesting content that makes people think. And talk. And inspires. And teaches. And you don’t need a headliner for that. You need people who know their stuff and are doing cool shit.”
What’s missing for me here, and what I think is the most important thing – people who can present/speak well. You may know your stuff and be doing cool shit, but if you can’t speak well in a conference environment the organisers are doing a disservice to those attending to have you speak.
Also @Tara – I’d suggest the conferences selling out while having so-so lineups or poor speakers aren’t going to continue to sell out.
Again, though, there’s such a variety of conferences that generalising only goes so far. Being a good presenter/speaker is more important at some events than others.
If pressed, for our conference, my order of importance in developing a lineup is something like:
1) good speakers/presenters
2) covering topics that we think would appeal to our audience (or, if we’re being really honest, that appeal to us
3) getting a diversity of genders and voices
I kinda want to say that I wish 3) wasn’t there. But, thinking on it, I’m glad it is. I think striving for some diversity is a good in its own right and generally needs to be done consciously.
December 14th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Mike, you make such a great point: There are plenty of people who are incredibly smart and critical to their industries…who aren’t great speakers. And I’d say there are plenty of them who are current headlining speakers right now
Yes, it’s a risk to feature new voices, to be the first to give some young hot shot a slot. Usually it works out great; occasionally someone flames out. (Of course, it’s also a risk to be the fifth conference featuring someone well-known giving the *same speech* in a year!)
I also really want to support your final statement:
“I kinda want to say that I wish 3) wasn’t there. But, thinking on it, I’m glad it is. I think striving for some diversity is a good in its own right and generally needs to be done consciously.”
It’s fairly typical that, without any special effort, a speaking roster will look pretty much like the networking circle of the organizer…maybe one more degree of separation out. It doesn’t make any of us bad people. But we’re not doing our jobs if we don’t try to break out of that.
My mantra is this:
1. You have to believe that diversity brings value to the stage and to your attendees and to your event (the little secret is that plenty of people actually don’t believe this, and they don’t want to simply say so.)
2. You then have to prioritize achieving it, because for most of us it simply won’t happen “organically”. And then you end up with the “Diversity is great, but no one submitted” excuse.
3. That means you have to have the humility to ask for help and do outreach outside your own typical circle. Every year when we issue our call for ideas, I send emails to various community leaders I know of, in diverse communities across many dimensions. I ask them to get the word out to their communities about our call for ideas. I have never once had someone be insulted by this outreach. Not everyone follows through, but most of them do…they blog it or tweet it or post it in their forums. That little bit of effort garners me dozens more submissions to choose from, dozens more new ideas and fresh voices.
I would only add one other thing: I think conferences that are business events have had a much rougher time during this economy than conferences that really are built on community. I would say that plenty of people pay for SXSW or TED out of their own pockets. I would say *most* BlogHer attendees do. But in these times, companies are cutting budgets to go to conferences, and most conferences aren’t worth opening our own personal wallets for, headliners or no. If that’s the case: Sustainability won’t come from speakers at all, but from figuring out how to become one of those events that is really a community, and that is worth spending personal money on, even if the subjects revolve around business and industry.
December 14th, 2009 at 1:38 pm
It seems like LeWeb is going through growing pains. From a mere 250 participants in 2005,event participation has exploded by 800% in just four years. It’s hard to get exact numbers for 09, given the on-site enrollment of approximately 2,000 doesn’t include those (like me) who participated remotely either via live broadcast or archives. (Access stats are a key area they should track across the board.)
While the event was uneven and lacked cohesiveness at times, much did go well. But that in itself could be part of the problem. If I understand correctly, the all-male “Gillmor Gang” evolved from phone conversations. This explains why the discussion tended to be a bit exclusive. I would have really appreciated the panel taking real-time questions from real people. It is definitely time to revisit gang membership, purpose and format. Ich, even the name – it sounds clubby, like that elitist Washington think-tank show. Nothing here says community…
And clearly, the”European Gang” discussion did not resolve the basic question of the event evolving to point it no longer aligns with its original objectives of encouraging growth of the Internet business community in Europe.
Mostly, what bothered me were obvious efforts to be provocative, the best example being to invite a “Sex Futurist,” who may have a name in the online community, but did nothing to forward the Paris 09 theme “Real-Time Web.” And unfortunately, despite an alluring subject, Violet Blue came off as boring and academic.
I think there were some great moments and great questions put on the table. Hopefully, what came out of the LeWeb Paris 2009 session will provide some direction for a tighter, more representative program in 2010.
In the interim, I think there is a lot we (male/female) can do locally to build stronger communities of influence. Again, Tara, as a fellow transplant from the U.S. to Montréal, I invite you to contact me. I would really like to exchange experiences and perspectives, and also provide you with contacts I have made so far. That’s what a community is about.
December 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Well, *I* don’t think it’s a boring topic. From my perspective as a conference organizer and attendee, these are great discussions.
I totally agree with Elisa’s three-point mantra, in particular the importance of prioritizing diversity. A lot of conference organizers say they want diverse attendees but then don’t put the effort into making it happen. Yeah, it’s hard. It’s worth it.
jon
December 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Everyone…if you haven’t seen Jon’s awesome post on this subject: http://www.talesfromthe.net/jon/?p=957
You should!
It brought up some other awesome posts. One by Allyson Kapin’s fabulous post a while back: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/allyson-kapin/radical-tech/diversifying-your-rolodex
And Alison C – I’ll drop you a line!
December 15th, 2009 at 1:08 am
Hi girls,
I just went to LeWeb twitter, and followed a discussion on “LeWeb et Feminité”. Here is what I found : http://mry.blogs.com/les_instants_emery/2009/12/le-web-09-leweb-networking-feminite.html
If you need a translation, it basically says that at LeWeb09, women were very pretty, not dressed like Geek… Very professional, isn’t it? Did anyone send the link of our current discussion to Loïc Lemeur and his team?
Regards,
Cécile
December 15th, 2009 at 6:04 am
@cécile – Loic and I had a very quick chat, but he seems exhausted. I’m going to wait until he gets back from his holiday to approach him (never want to make someone defensive).
December 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am
Tara, I just read Jon’s post and I’m going to strongly disagree with you on its “awesomeness”. Yes, it’s well-intentioned and DOES have quite a lot of useful, practical ideas. But I found it borderline offensive, as a woman, with “helpful” statements like this:
“Women may generally be less experienced and/or comfortable with the five-minute rapid presentation format than men.”
WTF?
If you wanted to construct a post that was a parody of subtle gender bias, that’s the kind of thing you’d say.
December 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
@Kathy I think Jon was giving a ‘what if’ example, not necessarily trying to stereotype (and personally, I think women may have quite the opposite reaction to the format.). But point taken.
December 15th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Kathy, point taken indeed. Apologies for the wording; I rephrased it as
Did the conference organizers investigate the possibility that the unfamiliar five-minute rapid presentation format might be a barrier to entry?
The reason I brought this up is that Gov 2.0 organizer Jessica Pahlka had commented “I’ve long meant to start a Women’s Ignite series, designed to let women practice public speaking … more women who feel comfortable on stage will help with the left side of that equation.” Computers, Freedom, and Privacy has introduced five-minute talks over the last couple of years and while they’re very popular, a lot of people (of all genders) have told me that it’s a new format to them and they’re not ready to try it in a conference setting. This year, we’ll try to arrange mentoring for people who would like to participate but are concerned about their lack of experience. This might be helpful for Gov 2.0 as well.
However, I certainly didn’t say it well. Apologies again. And if there are other bad word choices in my essay, I’d certainly appreciate hearing about them.
jon
December 15th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
@jon, thanks for responding. Your post isn’t poorly-worded (in my opinion), I simply disagree. And I probably shouldn’t have been so harsh about it — your post was simply the straw/camel one for me after the latest round of discussions… and that line struck me as a perfect example of how difficult this topic is.
Personally, I found the Ignite format *insanely* challenging. I did two. Sucked at both. Unfortunately, I’m dead certain my problems were lack of skill/practice, not gender-related.
I do, however, HUGELY applaud any attempt to help ANYONE get better at public speaking, in a comfortable environment. Toastmasters is one of the best resources for this, and widely available.
I’m equally concerned, though, that all of this still sends at least two messages I’m less than thrilled with: first, that women NEED “extra special care and attention” in learning to do these things… more so than men, and second… that public speaking is something women MUST or SHOULD do to further their career. Whenever these topics come up, the implicit assumption is that public speaking at events is implicitly THE path to increased success. I don’t fully buy that, and think we put WAY too much emphasis on the Importance Of Being On That Stage. (I can think of so many other far better ways to increase one’s exposure or chances for success)
However, like you, Elisa, Mike, and everyone else here — I do believe more diversity on stage is a big win for the *attendees*–whoever they are–and they’re who I care most about. Too often in these discussions, the emphasis is all on providing opportunities for people to increase their own exposure and “enhance their personal brand.” There are no short-cuts, and most people willing to lay a foundation and put in the time to participate fully in their profession find it less daunting than the picture I see painted about how “excluded” some of us are.
Nobody “deserves” to be a presenter/speaker any more than one “deserves” to have paying customers. People pay to attend these events and learn, not provide opportunities for exposure. The people who “deserve” something are the paying attendees, and in that — many of your ideas would go a long way toward helping improve their overall experience and growth.
December 15th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Tara Hunt, I said it in a tweet and will say it again. I <3 you for being so damn boring and unapologetic for it!
Being known as the first woman to start a full-service Internet company back in '95 and a "pioneer" of the Web, I'm frankly freaked out that we are still having the EXACT same conversations – and facing the same situations in our industry – as women faced back in 1995.
I repeat: 1995. (I won't even go back further than that because we all know it was far more dismal.)
Every woman – and many men – wish that this conversation was over but not because it is boring but because we really do want to see women in highly visible and powered places as a given, not a token. But that just ain't gonna happen anytime soon, most likely not in our lifetime, at least not to the point where we have nothing left to be boring about.
I was one of the very first women to speak at SXSW. I was asked by the organizers to put together the very first woman-only panel for the very first SXSW Interactive (panel was about women and the Internet). Since then, I can't get a speaking slot at SXSW to save my life so I go as press instead. But it is getting better, more diverse, and women now clamor to go there.
Things do get better, in tiny increments. Those of us who may finally get a foot in the door to speak at the biggie conferences can feel the door open just a sliver, a mere crack. But we're going to wedge our feet in there, our whole bodies if we have to, in order to throw the doors open to other women. That is our DUTY. That is our GIFT.
January 1st, 2010 at 1:31 pm
@Sheila (changed) THANK YOU for sharing that story. It is so impactful to see women doing it. It may be a human ego thing (not egotistical, but ego as in the sense of Freud) to be more empowered by seeing someone who mirrors you more being in a position of influence and power.
I can’t wait for you to be up on the podium!
January 1st, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Actually, Tara, I wrote that comment, not Visitki. (Here: http://www.horsepigcow.com/2009/12/women-women-blah-blah-blah/#comment-52461 )
Happened to see that bit of theft because I’m subscribed to the comments for this post.
January 1st, 2010 at 4:24 pm
@Sheila
Oops! I see that. I’ll delete it. I thought the story sounded familiar, but it had been a while since I’ve visited this post. Sorry!
T