Wednesday, April 05, 2006
I guess Mesh follows the O'Reilly 10% rule
Or, another example of why BlogHer won't be "passe" in my lifetime!
Billed as Canada's Web 2.0 Conference, Mesh wants to be hip, but sorry, I don't think any confernece that can only find about 6 slots for women in a speaking roster over 50 strong qualifies as anything but old-school, Web 2.0 or not.
Usually tech (read: O'Reilly) conferences trot out the excuse that they're looking for deeply geeky presenters, and while I would argue that deeply geeky women abound, I agree that deeply geeky men are the low-hanging fruit. Of course, I've already established that I believe it's the conference organizer's job to seek out representatives of diverse perspectives, not the other way around, but let that go for the moment.
Let that go, so you can check out Mesh's schedule.
Honestly, tell me you can't think of a prominent woman that could be on every single panel on that list. Look, I'm happy to see the 6 women who are there. They are all leaders. I checked out Mesh's site because of one of their women speakers.
But I'm sure not going to spend the money to go to it.
Look, BlogHer is right up front that our speakers are all women. We're bringing you the best and brightest women speakers we can find. Take it or leave it. If you leave it because of that, we'll own it.
So, if other conference organizers didn't think it was worth much effort to diversify their rosters, I want them to own that too. Just don't tell me they're not out there.
Billed as Canada's Web 2.0 Conference, Mesh wants to be hip, but sorry, I don't think any confernece that can only find about 6 slots for women in a speaking roster over 50 strong qualifies as anything but old-school, Web 2.0 or not.
Usually tech (read: O'Reilly) conferences trot out the excuse that they're looking for deeply geeky presenters, and while I would argue that deeply geeky women abound, I agree that deeply geeky men are the low-hanging fruit. Of course, I've already established that I believe it's the conference organizer's job to seek out representatives of diverse perspectives, not the other way around, but let that go for the moment.
Let that go, so you can check out Mesh's schedule.
Honestly, tell me you can't think of a prominent woman that could be on every single panel on that list. Look, I'm happy to see the 6 women who are there. They are all leaders. I checked out Mesh's site because of one of their women speakers.
But I'm sure not going to spend the money to go to it.
Look, BlogHer is right up front that our speakers are all women. We're bringing you the best and brightest women speakers we can find. Take it or leave it. If you leave it because of that, we'll own it.
So, if other conference organizers didn't think it was worth much effort to diversify their rosters, I want them to own that too. Just don't tell me they're not out there.
// posted by ElisaC @ 2:26 PM 
Comments:
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Absolutely! People have brought up the concept of BlogHer Canada before, and we're happy to lend our support.
Alright! That's some quick proactivity right there!
I'm going to send you the names of a couple of the women whowere tossing aorund the idea last August post-BlogHer 05.
I'm going to send you the names of a couple of the women whowere tossing aorund the idea last August post-BlogHer 05.
As for mesh, I'm not sure that it's worth the money to go either, and I live in Toronto! I've already responded to Kate that I'd love to help get BlogHer North going.
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# posted by 
: 4/07/2006 9:35 AM
: 4/07/2006 9:35 AM << Home
