A Blog About Making Culture
The Essentials of Web 2.0 Your Event Doesn't Cover
February 23, 2007
Do you want to learn about the future of web applications? If so, when choosing an event, you might want to make sure it's one that cares about including speakers based on merit, instead of based on arbitrary gender qualifications. I judge merit to be those who meet these criteria:
1. They've already been successful
2. They have done something innovative and unique
3. They are well-known names who will draw an audience and make the event compelling
4. Their work impacts a large audience, or has great influence on the space
Caveats: This list took about 15 minutes for me to make, and I had a little bit of help from Caterina. It's also skewed towards women whom I know well or whom I have already seen speak. But in 15 minutes, I was able to construct a set of theoretical sessions that you won't see at events that specifically exclude women, or that make sure not to reach out to them.
- danah boyd: The younger generation of web users have different definitions of "public" and "private" than you do.
- Mitchell Baker: How to take something from being an interesting technology to being a mainstream tool
- Caterina Fake: How to get things done even within the constraints of a big company
- Mena Trott: How to design an application that delights its users, instead of confounding them
- Liza Sabater: Your project won't succeed unless you reach people who are different from you
- Amy Jo Kim: How best practices from game design can make your web applications like crack
- Linda Stone:What we will be paying attention to in the future
- Kathy Sierra: How to design products that make your users smarter, sexier and hungry for more
- Heather Armstrong, Meg Frost, and Gina Trapani: One person can be a successful media outlet
- Lynne Johnson: How to credibly bring new media to an old-media company
- Jane Pinckard: Anybody with half a brain could have seen that the Wii was going to win, but you were busy bickering about the Cell processor
- Meg Hourihan: A real mashup: How to combine technology with something you love
- Heather Champ: How to manage a web community shitstorm with grace and tact
- Susannah Fox: You talk about "accessibility", but what do you know about people who are sick, old, or disabled?
- LeeAnn Prescott: Everybody talks about traffic and stats -- what about someone with actual data?
- Charlene Li: What are the criteria by which real-world analysts create their make-or-break analyses?
I could go on and on, but I know the obvious question: Where are the men? Well, don't worry -- the door is open to them. As soon as one of you has done something with the impact of Flickr, something that has the number of users of Firefox, made something that's used by the elderly or the young or by someone different than you, you can participate. Hell, if you make something that makes half as many people smile as Heather, Meg, and Gina's work does, you can send along a proposal to our imaginary event.
To conference organizers: If you haven't heard of these people or their work, or you think that Yet Another Bookmarking To-Do List Guy is more important, perhaps you owe some refunds. At this event, nobody would even notice if the wifi went out.
- See also: The Old Boys' Club is for Losers
Previously: The Old Boys Club is for Losers
paradox1x
Anil Dash: "Those of you who are defending this status quo are defending a culture of failure": The past few days there seems an opening in the ongoing conversation talking place about speaker lists at tech conferences... read more »Jen Bekman
My list started with a similar 15 minute session in the Fall and now stands at over 500. It’s not exclusively women in technology, but I’m working on increasing those numbers.
For your reference: List of Women Speakers For Your Conference
I’d appreciate suggestions of additions in comments there. Right now I’m off to be sure that the women in the list above who I’m not already familiar with are included there as well.
Ms. Jen
Thank you, Anil.
I have been raving up a number of these women to various folks and have gotten surprises from Web App guys that women like Liza can code Python. Silly men. Wait until they meet Liza…
;o)
Bob Aman
You can sign me up for that theoretical conference without hesitation. Would look forward to hearing from Kathy or danah because I know they have good things to say. But I’d be looking forward to everyone else even more because I don’t know them.
I decided not to sign up for RailsConf this year, admittedly, mostly because I’m unable to afford to, but also because, lo and behold, the speaker list is almost exactly the same as it was last year. I’d say a mere 25% of the talks last year were worth hearing. Everything else was stuff you could learn in 5 minutes of Googling. I don’t know about everyone else, but there’s a lot of other things I’d rather spend that money on if all we’re going to get, year after year, is the same old stuff. I don’t want to go to a conference and hear from a guy whose blog I already read. I’d rather hear from someone new and challenging.
Charles Knight
Please add Tara Hunt (www.horsepigcow.com) to your list!
tyfn
Anil,
Excellent keynote you gave here at Northern Voice. I would recommend you add Tara Hunt (Miss Rogue) to your list. She does alot of public speaking, is a fellow Canadian, and specialises in Community Marketing.
Her blog is horsepigcow (http://www.horsepigcow.com/).
Mike
This sounds like a stunningly good conference. Where do I sign up?
The Raconteur
I’m sorry, what has Tara Hunt done to be recommended, aside from self promotion up the wazoo and working for less than a year for a startup that switched direction 180 degrees?
Did you read Anil’s criteria? 1. They’ve already been successful 2. They have done something innovative and unique 3. They are well-known names who will draw an audience and make the event compelling 4. Their work impacts a large audience, or has great influence on the space
Sorry for the rant, she seems to be everywhere yet her message and her track record are not on par with the women Anil listed here.
Joe Duck
Great conference concept - do it Dash!
Tara Hunt
@The Raconteur,
With all due respect, this is your opinion.
I have no idea why you would go out of your way to ‘un-include’ me…especially with such a ‘limited’ list already. Obviously, I’ve struck a chord with you. Your anonymity pre-cludes me from understanding why.
Thanks to Mike and tyfn for nominating me. You rock.
As for the criteria:
- define your own success
- this is a nice measurement, but I think everyone in the world can fall into the unique category (which is good)
- sometimes conferences have to ‘discover’ people and not only bring in big names that draw, it’s a great risk to take
- large audience? Well, I suppose in our vertical, that’s relative. In fact, wandering around Paris yesterday, I spoke to several people, none who had even heard of Flickr (I was taking photos and asked store owner’s permissions)
I cam across this post from the geeky women in tech blogher list. I have a really great, long list of women entrepreneurs, some who are at various stages of ‘success’, but have all done something unique by actually taking a risk. And, yes, for some, the risk is higher (many of these women have children and some of them are the sole breadwinners):
http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/12/08/women-who-risk-redux/
Your posts on this matter have been awesome, Anil. I’ve refrained from commenting on my own blog until the dust settles.
voravit
Sure the whole Web 2.0 philosophy revolves around anywhere, anytime computing, but Google’s failure to make Google Apps documents accessible off-line has let Microsoft off the hook
Elisa Camahort
Great list, Anil. As half of those women named above have already spoken at BlogHer, I can attest that they have something unique to share with conference attendees, and they know how to communicate it well.
I must add, though, that BlogHer also believes in giving exposure and opportunity to fresh voices…one problem with conferences these days, even ones that do feature women, is that it’s the usual (male and female) suspects making the circuit. If you use Anil’s criteria #3 without fail that will certainly continue to be the case. BlogHer ‘06 had 90 (women) speakers, of which 85% had not spoken for us the year before.
I think there is a place to break criteria #3. I agree it can be a risk, but I wish more conferences would take that risk and find the next person who will an in-demand speaker.
Tim O'Reilly
Good list, Anil. I’m pleased at how many of them speak at our O’Reilly conferences (some of them all the time). It’s not always easy, though. (You try getting Caterina to speak — she usually wants to send someone else in her place. Often a man.)
Here are some other really interesting women for your list:
Christine Herron, Omidyar, venture capitalist with a conscience. Esther Dyson, independent investor, still winkling out interesting futures. Kathy Ku, Stanford, Office of Technology Licensing Margo Selzer, Harvard, co-founder of Sleepycat Susie Stevens, Oracle Health Care and Life Sciences Marissa Mayer, VP Search, Google Susan Wojcicki, VP Product Management. Google Lili Cheng, Microsoft Research Jane McGonigal, game designer and researcher CJ Rayhill, CIO O’Reilly, creator of SafariU content remix platform Aedhmar Hynes, CEO Text100 International Sandy and Elaine, the killer programming team behind Meebo Carla Sinclair, editor of our new Craft: magazine Lynda Weinman, lynda.com, author, designer, conference promoter Xeni Jardin, boingboing, wired etc. …
I could go on, but in the end, I think your post is a bit misleading. A conference tells a story, and it has to tell it well. Your list would make a great story for a conference on women in technology, and it’s a great list of people who ought to be speaking at a conference, with a focus on blogging, women and diversity. But that conference would get as old as the ones you’re deriding.
Yes, a lot of conferences are tired. But that’s because they don’t find interesting people who collectively tell a good story.
I have to side with Eric Meyer. Find interesting people. Work a little harder to find interesting women who can bring fresh voices and perspectives, but in the end, tell your story, whatever it is. The most interesting people in a field may be female, male, black, white, asian, gay, straight…it doesn’t matter. Just find the most brilliant and interesting ones related to the area you’re exploring, put them on stage, and let them shine.
I’ll also add that we’ve brought women into our conference committees (Tara Hunt and danah boyd come to mind) specifically to look for women speakers, and they have found that once they are on the inside of designing a conference, it’s a lot harder than it looks. Tech still is a male dominated industry, and if you get a female speaker list in the 20% range, you’re probably matching the demographic of the industry, unless you’re in a segment like SXSW (design skews more heavily to women.)
And I say this as a CEO whose management team is dominated by women (6 women, 4 men, including me, on our top management team.)
Ross Mayfield
More at the Speaker’s Wiki that Mary Hodder put together: http://socialtext.net/speakers
Jason Friesen
I wonder if anyone else notices that the first paragraph in this post is completely contradicted in the second paragraph.
“make sure it’s one that cares about including speakers based on merit, instead of based on arbitrary gender qualifications” followed by “It’s also skewed towards women”
If Mr Dash was truly choosing on merit, then gender wouldn’t make a difference. Which was Mr Meyer’s point in the first place. Clearly, though, gender does make a difference to Mr Dash’s choices. Perhaps he should speak more honestly about his criteria?
Elisa Camahort
All due respect, Tim, but which of Anil’s session topics above is gender-specific? Your comment is very revealing. Those are just smart women talking about topics that are relevant to everyone, not just women in technology.
Liz Lawley
Excellent list, Anil! Thanks for doing this.
Eric Meyer
Thanks, Tim.
And thanks, Anil, for the recommendation that people attend merit-based conferences like An Event Apart at the beginning of the post. I think you’ve got the foundations of a great conference of your own rolling here, too—I say go for it!
Edward Vielmetti
All of the speaking I’ve done recently has been at library related events, and for the most part that world doesn’t have the same problem of being dominated by all male speakers that you describe. It’s rather refreshing, actually.
There’s no chocolate fountains and ice sculptures, though, which as I understand it is a requirement for Web 2.0 stuff.
Ed
Shelley
“I have to side with Eric Meyer. Find interesting people. Work a little harder to find interesting women who can bring fresh voices and perspectives, but in the end, tell your story, whatever it is. The most interesting people in a field may be female, male, black, white, asian, gay, straight…it doesn’t matter. Just find the most brilliant and interesting ones related to the area you’re exploring, put them on stage, and let them shine.”
How do you find interesting people? You search among those you know. You search among those most visible.
How does one become visible? It’s not by being creative or vocal, it’s by people paying attention.
This argument and the fact that in most cases only the men’s post or the men’s words were the only one repeated, whether in agreement or debate, shows that no matter happens, like ‘sees’ like, and we women are not ‘like’.
What Eric has done is give respectability to all of this. He went online and said quality matters, and since there are no women speaking at his little shindig, there are none of us who he considers ‘quality’. I don’t think he’s even aware of how much harm he’s done.
Why should women stay in a field where those who dominate it think we don’t measure up? Where those who dominate control the visibility? Where those who dominate it, see both, and don’t see any harm?
It may not be a physical act of making women sit in the back of the bus, but Eric, and all those who thankfully agree with Eric, have effectively put us there.
Ryan Carson
Hey Anil,
Just responded at my blog
Best, Ryan
Caterina Fake
Just a quick note, since I’ve been called out specifically in Tim’s comment above:
I’ve been invited 2 years in a row to do a talk at ETech, and this year a panel on Web 2.0, but haven’t been able to come due to other speaking engagements and work conflicts. I was able to speak at Web 2.0 on a different panel than the one originally proposed, which worked with my schedule. Twice I recommended some other people on my team, specifically Chad Dickerson, who runs YDN, and the Pipes Team (Pasha Sadri, Ed Ho, Jonathan Trevor and Daniel Raffel). But as a general rule, I do recommend other women to come speak in my place, and generally provide recommendation lists that are 75% or more women.
Cameron Barrett
Here’s a few more women to consider:
Dori Smith, Javascript Guru, dori.com Christina Wodtke, Information Architect, BoxesAndArrows.com Anitra Pavka, Web Accessibility & 508, anitrapavka.com Laura Lemay, Computer Book Author & Technical Writer
Amie Gillingham
If a conference featuring this lineup were to happen, I would so be there. I run a start up. Are we successful? We’re making money, but we’ve got a long way to go to be in the same league with the ladies referenced above. But there’s no question that all of those women are rock stars to me. They’re who I want to be when our company grows up :)
Oh, and I would also add Tara Hunt to that list. She does for marketing what her PiC Chris Messina does for translating technobabble into something that is easily grokable. She’s a rock star in her own right!
Robert C.
The only thing that will satisfy this kind of criticism is if conference planners institute an artificial affirmative action policy to guarantee a 50/50 divide between men and women speakers.
If you don’t do that—if you simply pick speakers based on merit—then Anil Dash will tell people that you hate women. He’ll say you “specifically exclude women.”
I don’t think that’s reasonable. The field has more men than women. Women are well-represented at conferences. This is not discrimination.
pob
Thank you, Anil. Your post is the first sensible piece I’ve read on the topic, amid the recent rash of ill-conceived posts that have all managed to miss the point.
Kelly Brown
I’m a white guy with a girl’s name and I honestly could care less what women or men or white women who used to be black men or Sikh midgets think or feel about how their of my particular group is represented among the ranks of speakers at these kinds of events.
When money is laid for out for a speaker he/she or it has to be engaging and knowledgeable. Nothing else matters especially the feelings of those who were not engaging or knowledgeable enough to have been paid to be other tough end of the podium.
Get someone good and the people will come.
Nathan de Vries
I couldn’t help but respond to this post on my blog.
antonis hontzeas
Weeeeeeeeell, I’m glad to see that similar tensions exist in your side of the world;the bay area is part of this planet after all.
Nicole Sullivan
you rock! Really, thanks for writing these two responses.
Courtney
As someone who once had a career in science, I have this to say to the men who excuse their conference speaker selections with “but the industry still has more men in it.” Do you know why that is, why your industry is male-dominated? Or would you prefer not to have to think about that, or that you might even have control over it? If people in a field cared about having an equal mix of quality men and women (which is different than just saying an equal mix of men and women), they’d go out of their way to find more women to speak at conferences and be public spokespeople for their field. That would in turn actually attract more women, increasing your odds of finding more of those superstar people you want in your field. Who would also happen to be women. In my mind, it is just that simple, but people generally prefer to hide behind the industry trend than have anything to do with actually changing it, to the benefit of all involved.
Specifically, to Tim, yes you should tell a good story, but if your story entails hiding behind trends rooted in discrimination that still mean getting a 20% mix of women is a good result, there’s something fishy about your character development. When you want someone who can help you tell that story, who do you look to for people who can do that? People who you’ve heard of. And why have you heard of them? Because other people are either talking about them or inviting them to conferences to speak—so if those are generally men, you’re only telling part of the story because there are likely lots of talented women out there who could tell that story too, but no-one knows about them because they’re not getting invited to tell it. And so on. “Tell your story, whatever it is” is a lazy way to hide behind an industry whose own sad story has consistently ignored the voices of plenty of talented women.
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