Gnomedex=”BlogHim?”

or relocate to Vegas?

And the problem is?

more guys than women signed up. That’s not bad or good. It just is. Perhaps the gender thing is getting a tad out of hand?

Not necessarily as attendee related as much as speaker related – but interesting nonetheless.

post
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/02/23/diverse-it-gets/

fallout
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/02/24/diverse-reactions/

Are they there to talk about tech, or are they there to talk about babes?

What the hell am I asking you for? You’re married. I’ll go ask Pirillo.

One problem that I’m seeing in women speakers at tech conferences is the completely “so what” attitude by the (male) conference organizers, which I experienced first hand with one of the organizers of an upcoming Web 2.0 conference in Toronto: http://www.sandyofftopic.com/2007/03/playing-in-your-walled-wurstgarten

Lack of women speakers translates to some degree to lack of women attendees. For any given technology topic, it’s possible to find women of equivalent knowledge and stature to the men who are being asked to speak; however, you have to *want* to find them.

“Lack of women speakers translates to some degree to lack of women attendees.” Why? How is that a valid reason not to go? Chris goes on to say that he hasn’t announced any speakers yet, male or female. Do you want to go? Have you bought a ticket? Were you told you couldn’t have one because you were a woman? What is the problem?

What is there at Gnomedex to attract a woman, other than apparently overtly geeky men. Come on, we women want to be involved. Involve us, seperate is not necessary in this day and age. A woman can show you a thing or two. Trust me. My geek husband could tell you that!

So far I’ve spoken at these conferences for Microsoft:

TechEd Amsterdam 2005
TechEd Australia 2005
Blog Business Summit 2006
South by Southwest 2007

I was invited by Blogher to speak at the last two, the first two I lobbied with our international evangelism teams to present on blogging.

Anecdotally, SxSW seemed to have the most women speakers and attendees. TechEd Amsterdam oy very few. Same with Australia.

If women don’t get the opportunity to practice/perform with A-listers, they never get to be A-listers. If they don’t get invited, they don’t go and never get to be A-listers. Sure they can lobby like I did, but what if they run into Meyerweb.com guy?

And no, I don’t know why Chris is getting only men at Gnomedex – it might be that chest photo is overwhelming the ladies.

Betsy Aoki

Sorry I should add, Maryam Scoble for the Blog Business Summit, and Blogher for the last one. It was Maryam who put me on the panel with the Blogher powerhouses, and they were kind enough to ask me to another panel elsewhere.

Betsy

I bought a ticket for Gnomedex, and last time I checked, I was still a woman.

In response to “So What” (how clever — hiding anonymously behind my own comment!), I’m not going to Gnomedex because it’s too general of a technology conference, and because I’m independent and pay my own expenses, it’s not worth travelling across the country for. I save my travel budget for business process management and collaboration conferences, especially when I’m speaking, or events like Mashup Camp.

I’m also, however, not going to the mesh conference here in Toronto because of their absence of women speakers combined with the conference organizers smug comments to me about it, such as “well, the tech industry *is* all white guys” as one of their reasons for selecting all male keynotes.

I’m not being explicitly excluded, I’m voting with my feet (and my blog).

I don’t mind that there are more guys out there in the blogosphere, I expected it and am not intimidated by it. My bigger issue is that most of the conferences are on the left coast … Come to NY or Boston and maybe you’ll see more grrrls!

Hey, don’t forget about the Windy City! There’s a lot of good bloggers here in Illinois.