Sometimes you just have to laugh. Apparently this conference, “Community Next“, has been missing all the years of discussion in blogging and tech communities about gender diversity. Maybe it’s too technical of a conference and women tend to go for the more “soft” skills like communities and social engineering and marketing? Oh wait, that’s what the conference is about. Um! Maybe there aren’t any women in tech who do community work? Or who know anything about viral marketing and web 2.0? Maybe they’re not famous and notable enough, or don’t know how to speak? Golly. Where are the women!?
Seriously, I looked at this speaker list and conference description and started laughing really hard. So many nice guys that I like and respect, but here, they dropped the ball.
Again.
Maybe danah was rly rly busy so they just didn’t know who else there was to ask!
Or maybe if they put some pink in that web site design and a link to shopping, some of the wimminz might show up. (/sarcasm)
If there aren’t women talking, I get turned right off of going.
On the other hand, some of those guys are kind of hot. Maybe they will wear their best really tight witty Threadless tshirts and make it worth my while to show up. Hawt!
(/really ending sarcasm now)
PLease don’t /sarcasm. It gave me my first laugh out loud of the day…and it’s already 3:30PM!
E
They’ve got Gina Bianchini top of the list now, FWIW.
Yeah I saw that – When we started talking about it on some mailing lists, Noah Kagan wrote and said they really would like to have more women speaking at the conference and they are going to add a few more speakers.
That’s often how it goes, none of them would have noticed otherwise, you point it out, they go oh yeah at the last minute. While that is better than responding negatively, it is also part of the pattern that we are trying to change.