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February 03, 2004
Need Your Help
I've been asked to design a lecture series to honor women innovators -- particularly women in technology -- which would feature women leaders speaking about innovation and be held at an esteemed academic institution. Many of the featured women speakers would be business leaders. They would travel to this university to speak for a one-day event. There would be a series of several events over the course of a year. What's got me stumped is realizing I could design these events with women's needs, wants, requirements, convenience in mind.
I started to realize almost all the events I've ever attended or spoken at, are designed around men's schedules, conveniences, ideas of relaxation, pleasure, fun. (Think events at golf resorts, etc.) In particular, there are often evening events. As a working woman and a mom -- and many of these speakers are the same, usually over 35 (or even if they are under) they tend to be married with children) -- there is little pleasure in being up late away from home, spouse and kids. Add to the fact that I don't drink anymore and hate big dinners with wine and after-dinner brandy and such, and I'm really out of it.
Suddenly I began to think -- wait a minute -- back to the drawing board -- what would a great event for women even LOOK LIKE. I had no models. When I started to look at it from an attendee's point of view ... and it gets tricky here because I hope there will be an equal number of women and men attending ... I found it very confusing to contemplate. The truth is, as a working mom, I often just DON'T GO TO EVENTS, even when I'm given a complimentary (free) ticket because they are full of complications for me related to their assumptions of a male schedule.
Think through this with me. If I am a single female attending an event, (as I am on weeks when my son is with his dad) and the event is in the evening, I have to think of driving to parts of town and parking in possibly dangerous parking garages and if there is enough of a hassle or danger along those lines, I don't bother attending. If they are during the day, depending on my current job, I think as a women, it's usually easier to attend, but most events are not in the middle of the day based on the assumption that people (men?) are too busy to leave their offices (feel free to challenge me on this assumption).
If events happen on weeks when I have my son with me and are in the evening, and I have to juggle any babysitter or daycare issue (end of day pickup time is sacrosant) I don't even bother trying to attend -- it's too much trouble and I would almost always rather be with my son. As I started to look at this, I realized how often I am forced to opt out of business gatherings because of concerns of my female safety or denying my child my availability. I don't know that many men who really think about this. And everyone knows many of these events can really HELP your career.
So with the prospect of making an event women-speaker friendly and woman-attendee friendly, I find myself in the unenviable and enviable place of being forced to think WAY out-of-the-box. I think a luncheon is my favorite idea so far where the woman innovator would speak and then later in the afternoon, the opportunity for her to be a guest lecturer at one of the professor's classes and then maybe end with a cocktail party where students, business people and the speaker can mingle. I don't mind things that end by 6:00PM, but any later and I want to be either home or having a small dinner with a private group of friends that may have formed at the event but don't feel like having an "institutional" dinner. As a speaker, I love an event that ends early.
Also, I wanted to think about speaker gifts in a new way. Speaker gifts are often gifts for men -- paperweights, pens, other boring stuff -- and yes, perfectly acceptable for women too. But when I was on Oprah's Book Club segment as a reader guest, they gave us the most TERRIFIC basket of cosmetics -- actually bath and manicure items -- and I loved that it was thought up from a feminine perspective.
So with all this in mind, free free to disagree with all my assumptions, but I need your help to understand what a woman's lecture series would even LOOK like. Please comment.
Posted by Halley Suitt at 10:44 AM in Events | Permalink
Comments
It sounds as though a lot of the problems you describe could be ameliorated with a reliable transportation system, for your attendees and for those they need to transport. Expensive, I suppose -- but more expensive than the usual conference stuff? I dunno.
Posted by: Dorothea Salo at Feb 3, 2004 11:35:58 AM
I can't speak for the preferences of other women, but I can tell you my preferences. I probably wouldn't go to an event during a weekday because of the need to take vacation time from work (I'm a miser that way). My home obligations are limited to two cats, and I don't mind driving and parking at night, so I prefer evening and weekend events.
My reaction to getting a bath-and-manicure gift might depend on whether that's the standard gift for everyonemen and womenor whether someone assumed that I'd like that stuff (which I don't) because I'm female.
I'd probably avoid any event that sounds like an "institutional" dinner because I never seem to feel comfortable at them.
Posted by: katie at Feb 3, 2004 11:40:41 AM
One of the things that is rarely organized at many of the conferences I've attended are events for the speakers. If I were to be invited to speak at this event, I'd relish the opportunity to spend some time with the other women speakers. Nothing too fancy or formal, just a nice coffee klatch or cocktail hour where we could "network" and share "war stories", develop our Old Girls Network more. Stuff like that. It always seems a shame to me that conferences do such a great job of bringing really smart and talented people (and of course this isn't limited to speakers) and then don't do anything to "cross-pollinate" them.
As for the other stuff you mention, I've never really noticed any kind of "maleness" in the events I've been to (aside from events at golf resorts, which do strike a very men cigar image). Granted, I don't have kids, so scheduling isn't usually a problem for me. Perhaps a better way of thinking about stuff is that it isn't kid/family friendly?
Oh, one other point on the organization of conferences in general: it seems the assumption by conference planners is that attendance is paid for by "work," whether someone is a speaker or an attendee. That's really hard for self-employed people, so I'd suggest (and maybe this is already planned) that travel expenses be covered for speakers; that's often been a stumbling block for me in the past. And maybe there's a sliding scale for attendance, so that those with the benefit of corporate jobs aren't the only ones who can attend.
Oh and hey, why not offer day care? Then people could bring their kids along if they needed to.
As for speakers gifts, why not something that's asexual and could be useful, like an Amazon gift certificate? I know I really wouldn't want a bunch of bath crap anymore than I'd want some stupid crystal paper weight.
Ok, that's it. And I don't know why I have so many words in quotes. Ick.
Posted by: megnut at Feb 3, 2004 11:53:06 AM
I don't think you're going to please all of the people all of the time. I have a small child, so events during the day are appealing. But as an academic I have a job with a more flexible schedule than many, and taking time during the day would obviously be difficult for a lot of people. Of course if you are talking about a campus event, then that isn't as much of an issue. As a sometime organizer myself, I think you can go one of two ways: plan your different events with as much variety as possible in order to please all of the people some of the time, or choose a format and stick with it, and please some of the people all of the time.
Re. gifts: an Amazon certificate or something similar is a great idea. The bath stuff is nicely feminized and a refreshing change from paperweights, but if someone is into that sort of thing they would likely have strong preferences, and if they weren't, they wouldn't like whatever was chosen. I had an exercise in my gender studies class last year where students were asked to write about one of a variety of scenarios, one of which was to choose a gift for a guest speaker named Lee Smith, with no other information. Poor Lee got LOTS of paperweights. And one desk clock, I think.
Posted by: mjones at Feb 3, 2004 12:21:44 PM
I'm currently involved in a group that is organizing a conference for women, and have asked myself many of the same questions. (The conference is here for reference: http://www.svn.org/womensgathering.html). Now granted this conference is specifically for women, and is taking more of a retreat format, so a lot of these issues are a bit easier to get around, but I really appreciate the questions you are asking yourself. Having attended my fair share of industry (IT) and academic conferences in my day, I would totally agree with you that conferences tend to be -- like much of the business world -- gendered as more male than female. Of course there are valid historical reasons for that, and at least on my part that observation doesn't imply that that is a particularly horrible thing, but I do think it is worth looking at.
Moving on, I think the suggestion of daycare is a great one. I also share other women's concerns about taking time off during the day -- I am self employed and taking time off billable client work is hard for me to justify -- the answer may be to offer a variety of opportunities, but I'm not sure how long the conference is or what your budget looks like. Maybe the best way to think about this is how you can use this as an opportunity to play with some options and see what works and doesn't rather than taking on the large task of trying to totally reinvent the structure.
As for gifts/honorariums: I like the gender nuetrality of an Amazon gift certificate, and obviously it is good across locations, but I'd like to suggest going a bit further with that. I'm not sure how you would coordinate something like this as you have speakers coming from different geographical locations, but here's an example of something we did recently. As I mentioned I'm self employed -- a partnership of two people actually -- and each year for the holidays we give our clients gifts. We're big advocates of promoting small business over large where possible, and of promoting women run businesses as well. This year we gave gift certificates to a small women's bookstore in town (www.womeninprint.ca). We custom designed the gift certificates with a holiday message as well as a brief message about why women's/independent bookstores are so darn swell. We gave those to all of our clients which included men and women from the corporate world as well as those from the non-profit and grassroots communities. The reaction we received was really positive. People were interested in hearing the story of this little bookstore and were really excited about going there to shop -- men and women alike. Anyway, as I say the local aspect of that may not work for you, but I think it is worth thinking about how you might use that gift/honorarium tradition as a location for change. Other examples might just be a bottle of wine from a local vineyard (I'm not sure where you are) or another locally produced product that is a bit more meaningful than a paperweight. And of course there are lots of innovative online businesses that may be interested in partnering with you for the exposure.
I echo the comments about organizing a meet and greet for the speakers as well, I think that is a wonderful idea. When I've been a part of conferences like this, I've found it to be really great if that can happen before the speaking sessions as it helps to but the speakers at ease and familiarize them with the vibe of the conference. I think it is also really easy for us, as organizers, to forget that the "experts" we are bringing -- particularly if they are women -- often don't think of themselves as experts on a day to day basis and take a lot of inspiration from collaborating with others, so to start off a conference that way I think is really helpful.
Posted by: emira at Feb 3, 2004 12:55:23 PM
For a speaker gift: what about one of those key-chain USB mini drives?
Posted by: lisa at Feb 4, 2004 9:35:58 AM
You could even preload the USB mini-drive with information like the program or speakers presentations/handouts...
Posted by: MD at Feb 4, 2004 10:29:03 AM
My husband keeps our kids when I have to go to conferences or evening events, so I haven't found that one as much of a struggle. I do know from professional society experience that setting up daycare is a huge liability problem. For a large conference some kind of matching system or link to local graduate students that would help people set up day care informally would be more viable.
I stopped drinking alcohol with my first pregnancy and never went back to it. Recently I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which I can control with diet and exercise. I never liked soda much, but now I can't have it, and I haven't learned to tolerate the taste of diet. So I go to a cocktail party and ask for water?? Yes, they have bottled water, but I feel like a social misfit. Those continental breakfasts with danish or donuts and maybe if you are lucky orange juice are depressing now. Between diabetics and people on low carbohydrate diets the issue might be worth thinking about.
Posted by: Pem at Feb 4, 2004 11:57:03 AM
I often attend events put on by a local professional women's organization and, regardless of time of day, the organizers stick to the schedule and end the events on time. Everybody appreciates that, and it makes the events more appealing since it cuts down on potential scheduling crises. And if you end evening events on the early side, parents can still get home in time to put the kids to bed. As for venue location, I suggest picking transit friendly sites. Helps to cut down on parking hassles for attendees, makes for a more accessible event, and, since transit stops are often located in areas where there's lots of foot traffic, it may help attendees feel safer. My only thought on speakers gifts is "no mugs."
Posted by: Helise at Feb 4, 2004 4:36:19 PM
I was on a conference board last year and did a lot of lunch-time events which were a great success. Everybody must have lunch, so you can't go wrong if you combine that with a great speaker. Lots of salad and sandwiches and ice tea [well, ok, I went to school in the South...so we just couldn't help ourselves].
As far as gifts go...we did baskets too: gourmet tea and coffee and chocolates and stuff like that. Most people loved them and they were pretty gender-neutral. I love the gift-certificate idea too!
One thing that most people found problematic was the lack of followup after the conference. Networking social events are great for that. Dessert and coffee/tea in the afternoon seem to do the job. Explicitly publicizing these as 'networking events' helps a lot. People don't feel bad about trying to reach out and talk about work and careers and that sort of thing.
Good luck!
Posted by: petya at Feb 5, 2004 3:57:21 AM
Some of the most interesting presentations I have ever attended were done as dialogs, with an introduction followed by a conversation between two people as the audience listens in. I am not talking about a panel discussion. Later the audience broke into smaller groups and continued the dialog amongst themselves with the "presenters" stopping in each group briefly.
I appreciate it when attention is paid to issues of privilege. For example, it is always much appreciated when grants are available to people with low/no income for child care and transportation, but often the grant money is not available until well after the event. That can be a tremendous barrier.
Posted by: Vicki Smith AKA CalGal at Feb 5, 2004 6:24:10 AM
For an ice-breaker you can do something fun with name tags: in addition to the tags that actually inform about someone's name, have a collection of stickers that can be added to the tag by the participants.
We did this at a party--all the guests had to choose a "nametag" from an assortment of descriptive words beginning with "F" (for our last name, lol). We had fun greeting one another as "feral" and "frivolous" and "fissiparous". Seeing what words other people had chosen and explaining our own choices meant there was always an opening for a conversation.
You could do the same with meaningful words that apply to the conference theme.
Posted by: lisa at Feb 5, 2004 7:55:51 AM
Halley, this is a great thread you've inspired, full of good ideas. But you haven't said a lot about important details, like:
What sort of speakers do you have in mind? If you're looking at someone like Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina, then Amazon GCs, USB keychains, and nice bath baskets just don't feel right. Ditto for more technical leaders like Judy Estrin, Glorianna Davenport, Adele Goldberg. Remember, many of these folks want people to focus on their message, not their gender. If you're going for global tech luminaries, you should consider better gifts -- a decent digital camera, a custom-designed gold charm, a craft-bound book of the photos and papers of pioneering women in technology (okay, that one would be a lot of work). For our (HP Laboratories) distinguished lecturer series we give cameras, printers, PCs as speaker gifts. (Hey, if you had a corporate sponsor...) Not sure if gadgets are too "male" though, I'm too close to the question to be objective ;-)
Who is your audience? University people, local industry wage slaves, senior managers, open enrollment? In general, I'd say the late morning, early afternoon slot would work best due to all the issues of family commitments, rush hours etc. If the speakers are of sufficient star power, people will make time to hear them. But get the word out early so people can plan their time. Publicity is crucial, advance planning for busy people is a gender-neutral issue I think. Maybe an audio conference line or even a live webcast for people who just can't make the trip?
How big of an audience? If you have the budget (or if you can con students into doing it for cheap), consider a free valet parking service to help with the safety and general annoyance factors of parking in unfamiliar territory. If you're doing a social event, consider making a website/blog in real time where people can take photos and post them, leave comments/threaded discussions about the event, gosh maybe even set up a tribe.net group so attendees can continue to connect beyond the event.
Umm, guess I'm not much help on the specific women-friendly angle... how about: make sure there's plenty of good cold water to drink, still & sparkling; pay attention to detailed touches like having nice flowers on the tables, clean restrooms, fresh fruit/veggie snacks; nametags on lanyards instead of those stick-on ones that screw up your good clothes; host/esses whose job it is to introduce people and get conversations started among strangers; make sure you get *good* pictures of the speakers for your publicity, not the usual mug shots; okay enough already. I think I want to come to this series :-D
Posted by: gene at Feb 5, 2004 4:07:02 PM
I don't think I could track it down now, but I seem to remember that Teresa Nielsen Hayden (http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/) had a thread on her blog, or linked to it, about how to accommodate women speakers and attendees at sci-fi fiction conventions, or something like that. Maybe she can help you track it down; I remember that it was pretty thorough.
With regard to the gift certificates, you might want to consider the Seminary Coop Bookstore/57th St. Books in Chicago: Seminary Coop is an incredible academic-oriented bookstore, and 57th St. Books (they're the same coop) a great general interest bookstore. They're locally owned--a coop, no less--so it's not the Amazon/Barnes & Noble thing, but they're used to shipping and they have a website, etc. (http://www.semcoop.com/), so it's maybe more accessible than a small local bookstore that out-of-town speakers would be hard-pressed to visit.
Posted by: carla at Feb 6, 2004 3:07:46 PM
Thanks so much for all your helpful comments. I'm turning them off now actually as I'm nearly done planning the event and I've incorporated so many of your good suggestions. Halley
Posted by: Halley at Feb 7, 2004 10:21:59 AM
