misbehaving.net

LIFT06, fashionable women in technology

  Originally uploaded by ullamaaria.

Anina, speaking on the women and technology panel at LIFT06, mentioned that she'd been invited to speak at 3GSM. When asked by the 3GSM organisers what she needed in order to do that, she requested a stylist. Anina says that as a fashion model, being styled for public appearances is important to her credentials. Apparently it was other women who opposed the request.

(I don't know if the LIFT06 organisers agreed to a stylist but she did look fantastic yesterday in her colourful poncho.)

Working across fashion and technology is proving challenging for Anina. Her model agency recently told her to give up the tech stuff, arguing that fashion and technology do not go together.

Women invited to Design Engaged 2005

And here's another nice list of women speakers.

Design Engaged 2005: Who's coming to Design Engaged 2005?

Anne Galloway, Design in the Parliament of Things
Caterina Fake
Michele Chang, Public by Design?
Nurri Kim, TOKYO BLUES: the city seen through one material
Elizabeth Goodman, Seeing fit
Regine Debatty, Artists and Designers Giving New Meanings to the “Internet of Things”
Maribeth Back
Christiane Woodley, Cyber-babies and Single Moms: How Social Software Is Shaping
the Future of Marginalized Communities
Molly Steenson, Spaces Outside and In-Between.
Louise Klinker, Bad Consciousness
Anab Jain, A yellow chair and other strange behaviours. 

Design Engaged is a small, invitation-only, participatory conference in Berlin. Not only has the conference organiser, Andrew Otwell, managed a more representative list than you'd expect from such an event, there were a few names that were completely new to me. I can't wait to hear what they have to say.

collective conference action (women invade SXSW)

Last year, Hugh from SXSW made a conscious effort to include women at the conference. He also became an active supporter of Blogher and encouraged attendees to propose topics and attend. He worked with bloghers to devise manageable and interesting topics. And wow did the community respond. Blogher itself is sponsoring four panels:

• Debate: Public Square or Private Club?
  
• We Got Naked... now what?
  
• Meet Judy Jetson: How technology is transforming 21st century teens
  
• Respect Your Elder Bloggers

There are also numerous other panels being organized by women and *tons* of women speakers. So far, i know of the following women who will be speaking:

• Heather Armstrong
  
• Ronni Bennett
  
• Carrie Bickner
  
• Lori Bitter
  
• Kimberly Blessing
  
• danah boyd
  
• Koan Bremner
  
• Tiffany Brown
  
• Elisa Camahort
  
• Melinda Casino
  
• Grace Davis
  
• Laina Dawes
  
• Virginia DeBolt
  
• Ms. Jory Des Jardins
  
• Marian Douglas
  
• Susannah Gardner
  
• Shaenon Garrity
  
• Anastasia Goodstein
  
• Toni Greaves
  
• Erika Hall
  
• Celica Hirschman
  
• Molly Holzshlag
  
• Ponzi Indharasophang
  
• Lynne Johnson
  
• Monique Judge
  
• Wendy Koslow
  
• Nicole Lee
  
• Julie Leung
  
• Elaine Liner
  
• Jane McGonigal
  
• Lisa McMillan
  
• Veerie Pieters
  
• Shelly Powers
  
• Jennifer Robbins
  
• Evelyn Rodriguez
  
• Mary Schenck-Ross
  
• Sharron Rush
  
• Jeneane Sessum
  
• Irina Shklovski
  
• Kathy Sierra
  
• Glenda Sims
  
• Dori Smith
  
• Eris Stassi
  
• Lisa Stone
  
• Gina Trapani
  
• Jane Wells
  
• Nancy White
  
• Amanda Williams
  
• Lisa Williams
  

It should be an amazing event full of wonderful female energy. I suspect there will be lots of women bonding so i strongly encourage everyone to plan on coming and causing a little bit of feminist trouble!

SXSW2006 :: Austin Texas :: March 10-14.

if you were tim o'reilly...

...(or his web 2.0 organizing committee--I don't know who they are, but I'd venture a guess that they're all white men), who would you have invited to speak at web 2.0?

Here's my list to start things off:

• AJ Kim
• Foe Romeo
• Kathy Sierra
• Molly Steenson
• Dori Smith
• Judith Meskill
• Molly Holzschlag
• Janice Fraser
• Elizabeth Churchill
• danah boyd
• Lili Cheng
• Linda Stone

Who would you include?

speakerwatch: web 2.0 redux

Last July, I wrote my first "speakerwatch" post, in response to the preliminary web 2.0 conference--which listed 3 women out of 43 speakers.

Here we are, over a year later, and web 2.0 is in its second incarnation, riding high on the new tech bubble. It's a lot bigger this year--107 speakers listed.

How many women?

Seven.

So, I guess I should be grateful that they've more than doubled the number of women speaking, right?

Plus ça change...

h: web 2.0

Dr Lizbeth Goodman on SafetyNET

Dr Lizbeth Goodman will be speaking at Open Tech 2005 about 'Wireless, Seamless, Discreet' mobile platforms for the SafetyNET Project.

SafetyNet is a global cyber cafe project that uses the power of new technologies to help stop violence against women and children... SafetyNet quietly links women and children to information about domestic violence through online access. In the "safe spaces" of secure, moderated chat rooms, participants communicate with domestic violence specialists, volunteer attorneys, survivors of abuse, and mentors. SafetyNet also provides women with opportunities to develop computer skills and to start e-commerce businesses.

Sponsored by backstage.bbc.co.uk, Open Tech is "an informal, low cost, one-day conference" that's shaping up to be a really interesting, balanced tech event.

A woman talks about ETech

Kathy Sierra talks about her first experience at ETech. She acknowledges the scarcity of women and is at a loss to explain it, but she is not convinced by some of the explanations she's read:

I think one of the most damaging things is when people spread this meme that "women don't go to these conferences because they aren't made to feel welcome." The more we say this, the less likely it is that women will go. (Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.) We need a serious reframing. And often the same people who make this claim (and for very good intentions, and based on their own passionately-held beliefs), would bristle at the notion that women can't get out there and kick ass. If women need to "feel welcome" before they'll attend a conference, then what does that say?

Worth reading, both for the ETech news and the participant's perspective.

Guide to Black and Hispanic Women in Web Design

Web developer Tiffany Brown is putting together a guide to black and Hispanic women in web design in response to the choice of speakers on a SxSWI panel Where Are the Women of Web Design?, which includes three women and one man.

Panel organizer Molly Holzschlag said in regards to who she invited to be on the panel, "I had a very difficult time finding an African-American or Hispanic woman who has skills in web design / blogging to join us."

Kudos to Tiffany for making it easier, who also writes:

I’m not saying this panel had to include a black or Hispanic woman. But since [the panel organizer] brought up the diversity point, and specifically said it was “very difficult” I have to take Ms. Holzschlag to task. It’s hard for me to believe that it was so much harder to find one of ‘us’ than it was to find a 50-something woman in the industry.

Women in games conferences

The Women in Games 2005 call for papers is up, with proposed themes ranging from issues facing women in the games industry, to motivation and activism in gaming.

In related news, game girl advance has 'curated' a women-in-games track for the 2005 Game Developers Conference, including quality of life and diversity discussions, a round table about sexuality in games, and a casual games summit.

We invited 4 women and they couldn't come...

Fortunately the other nine could make it.

Caterina writes about the surprising gender balance of a Nokia-sponsored symposium on the subject of Play:

The invitees were nearly half women (9 women and 11 men), something of an achievement in and of itself, if you've been paying attention to who gets invited to these things. And 4 women were invited who couldn't make it, which, had they been able to attend, would have put women in the majority. Imagine that!

Well done to Nokia's Matt Jones, and his co-organisers at Ludicorp. (Disclosure: Matt Jones is my husband. I think I just wanted to say that ;-)

Web 2.0: Some lessons not learnt

Molly wonders about O'Reilly's Web 2.0 conference line up - "In my experience, working-with-the-Web 1.0 has many more women, including women in management. Is it that when we get to the new new Internet, there's no room for female execs? Surely that's not the case." - and dubs it The Womanless Web 2.0.

Serious Games Summit

Out of 45 speakers at the Serious Games Summit in Washington next month, there are four women. Heck, it's not just games conferences are the problem: even our little class of seven new grad students this year has exactly 0 women in it. The lads are lovely, but it is so nice to have other women around too.

speakerwatch: foocamp

For the second year, Tim O'Reilly is running FOOcamp for "friends of o'reilly." It's an informal, unstructured gathering of smart and creative tech people, which takes place outside of the O'Reilly headquarters (tents and campfires at night, wifi and meeting rooms during the day).

I don't have a problem with the event being "exclusive" (it's invitation-only). I know you can't let an event like this get too big, or you lose the energy that comes from close interaction and conversation.

But...

Out of over 250 participants, a whopping 25 are women. And of those, seven are O'Reilly editors.

Tim, if you're having that much trouble finding smart, interesting women in technology outside of your building, perhaps you should skim through our sidebar. There are plenty out there.

Finding women speakers

Two of the twenty-six speakers at Pop!Tech are women. That's abyssmal.

It is entirely possible to find excellent women speakers. At ISEA last week, the several keynote speakers included Joanna Berzowska, an expert on wearable computing, Sarah Kember, who's written a book on cyberfeminism I keep meaning to read, Machiko Kusahara, who spoke about mobile phone culture and urbanity in Japan, Nina Wakefield, who spoke about mobility and identity, and Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, speaking about interactivity, control and freedom. It was wonderful attending session after session of calm, intelligent women speaking with authority about so many topics. In addition, each keynote had a discussant who led the discussion afterwards, and many of these were also women. Though I wasn't counting, it seemed to me that there were as many questions from women in the audience than from men at these sessions, whereas usually (when men are speakers) men will dominate the question session.

How about we start linking excellent women practicioners, developers, researchers and artists who would make good speakers at technology conferences. Perhaps that way, the organisers of next year's Pop!Tech will realise that there are in fact more than two women who "explore the impact of technology on our lives, our planet and our future."

How to Get Out of the Audience and Onto the Stage

I'd love to see one or more of our "speaking veterans" put together a soup-to-nuts guide on how to speak at one of these events, from how to pitch the idea/ask to speak to what to expect when you arrive at the venue. What a tremendous resource that would be!

Someone wrote this comment in response to the last SpeakerWatch post about BlogOn, and thought I'd put down a few ideas on the topic. I didn't address "what to expect when you arrive at the venue", but that differs widely from conference to conference. I've had experiences ranging from 10 hours of prep with members of a panel which resulted in 10 minutes of talking, to not getting the conference address (no website!!) from the conference organizer until an hour before the talk, and then walking into a room of 300 people -- lawyers, before lunch. (One piece of advice: Never ever agree to do a talk for lawyers before they've eaten lunch.)

• Commit to being a public speaker I think that one reason you see the same speakers appearing at conferences over and over, is that there is a much publicized statistic that the #1 fear is the fear of public speaking -- and the people you see up there are among the few that have overcome this fear. Compound this with women's tendency to be self-critical and you have fewer women up at the podium. However, fear is not a good reason for avoiding the things you want to do. Start small. Practice speaking up whenever you are among a group of people. Do presentations to your boss and co-workers. Speak up at church. Speak up at PTA meetings. Get tongue-tied. Flub horribly. Recover. Flub again. Or take a course. I hear Toastmasters is great for speaker training. Becoming a confident speaker is not about eliminating mistakes and nervousness but about recovering gracefully from inevitable mistakes and nervousness.

• Research conferences and events. Figure out which conferences are best suited to your area of expertise. Subscribe to the conference mailing list to be informed of when they are accepting proposals. Find out what the conference organizers are interested in. Read papers from past conferences. Esther Dyson keeps a good list of tech conferences on her site. Wired magazine used to have a useful "junket" listing of upcoming tech events that was, unfortunately, discontinued. I don't know of any other lists, perhaps some misbehaving.net readers do?

• Network. Attend the conferences at which you'd like to speak. Talk with everyone at the conference that you can. Listen a lot. Seek out some of the conference's past speakers who share your area of interest. Engage them in dialogue on their weblogs and in other forums they frequent. Get to know the other players in your field, what their perspective is, where you agree and disagree with them. Publish your own weblog.

• Submit a Proposal. Unless you are already fairly well-known in your field, this is the best way to get your first speaking gig. Many conferences, such as Emerging Tech, explicitly accept proposals, while also seeking out speakers themselves. Others, such as Poptech and Supernova, do their own speaker selection. This does not mean, however, that they are not looking for speakers they don't already know about. Email the event's producer, say that you are proposing yourself as a speaker, give a brief outline of who you are, what your area of expertise is, and what you have to offer their audience. Keep this short, and offer to provide a longer proposal later if they are interested.

• Be Brilliant, Fascinating or Funny From the vantage point of conference organizers, good speakers enlighten, entertain, provoke or educate. They provide the audience with information they can use in their business, a stimulating idea, good soundbytes, and the occasional laugh. So once you get the gig, work hard on your talk. Practice it. Then break a leg. Once you've established yourself as a person who can provide these things, you will get reinvited and reinvited and reinvited. I think conferences are looking for more women speakers, as some Misbehaving.net commenters have pointed out. Indeed, Susan Mernit from BlogOn said more women had been invited than had been able to speak.

• Stay on the Radar. Once you've given your talk, solicit follow-up from colleagues. Improve your talk (a lot of speakers give one talk at several venues). Continue participating in conferences, online forums, publishing a weblog, being engaged. If all this seems like a big commitment, it is. But the payoff -- in terms of personal satisfaction, the esteem of your peers and building your career -- is huge. And the more women out there in the world, in the public eye and up on the podium, the better it is for all of us.

SpeakerWatch: BlogOn

The upcoming BlogOn conference does slightly better than Web 2.0 in its gender ratio, but not by a whole lot. A total of five women out of 41 speakers.

Of course, to their credit, two of their five speakers are misbehaving contributors--Halley Suitt and danah boyd. That alone makes me wish I could attend, but I'm staying home this summer and focusing on family and research.

SpeakerWatch: Web 2.0

Via Jason DeFillippo, I found the Web 2.0 conference happening this fall. It spurred me to institute a new feature here on misbehaving.net, SpeakerWatch. From now on, every time I hear about a new conference, I'm going to count the number of women speakers participating.

Web 2.0 has a total of three women out of 43 speakers. Maybe they'll add a few more before October. (If they need ideas, our sidebar has a few to choose from...)