Comments on: Diverse It Gets

By: Attracting Diverse Conference Speakers Vic Okezie – Online Profile of Vic Okezie

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 15:59:49 +0000

[...] Seeing the list reminded me of my first FOWA (in 2007, when I was a closeted geek) and a post about women at web conferences back then that generated controversy on what matters etc. Ryan the organiser tried to defend himself, and some strong opinions flaired here and there. [...]

By: Web Luminary Diversity

Web Luminary Diversity — Sat, 22 May 2010 23:38:28 +0000

[...] of blogs that I read every day, and this morning, Eric Meyer posted a really interesting post about diversity in the web community. Not surprisingly, it’s gotten a lot of response, and I wanted to pipe in with my [...]

By: matthew w

matthew w — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:55:40 +0000

Brilliant ideas that challenge the status quo will gradually percolate up from the fringe to the mainstream. Unless, of course, the channels are occupied by a homogeneous group. In our case, those channels are conferences and industry blogs.

Even without intending to, this homogeneous group will reinforce new ideas similar to their own, and suppress those that represent a paradigm shift in thinking. Not out of spite, but inertia.

Gone are the days when an independent blog can rise on good ideas alone. Without support from industry and celebrity blogs, a blog needs good ideas and solid writing and marketing skills. It’s possible, but should the challenge of blogging brilliance decide whether or not someone can share great web development ideas? I want to hear the best web dev ideas regardless of someone’s blogging pizazz!

Conferences exist to learn and share ideas that are not accessible in other forums like books and blogs. Conference that reiterate what we’ve read online a hundred times by the same white men are a boring waste of time!

Bravo Kottke for challenging the status quo. Bravo!

By: Stubbornella » Blog Archive » Technical Women Speakers on geekspeakr.com

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:52:03 +0000

[...] Ha! Take that Eric. [...]

By: Brady M

Brady M — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 07:13:52 +0000

I personally feel that this post is 100% on the ball. Anyone who see’s this as an insulting post should read it again and think about it. I strongly agree that you have to do the homework with marketing ,in this case finding the right people to do the task at hand, whether it be male or female it doesnt matter. You can have someone that is able to go over the core fundamentals of a particular item ,lets say CSS, but unable to speak publicly about it. For example lets say Mr Male and Mrs Female were both candidates for this position and they both had the same experience, expertise and were both well known for this fact, but were unable to address the points that the Customers (Audience) were asking. then which one would we ask to come along, obviously the answer is neither. I say this because the Audience would like to have someone that can Address the issues at hand. I am aware that Females do get scrutinized in the IT industry and get labelled as “She cant possible do what we(Males) do. I strongly disagree with this point as most females i know are able to make better Public Speakers for themselves and are able to Address the Situations at hand faster than most Males i know. I think it wrong that someone gets Labelled and “Shunted” according to their gender, race, ect. When did these things start counting to people, it is completley unfair and unappropriate. I personally applaud Eric and all guys that can see this light.

p.s. Tracey (Post #8) may i say that although the treatment you received does not surprise me, i do not belive you have to put up with that. I have a few IT Technicians that are female and when i take them to a new Clients site to inspect their IT Equipment all the staff at that clients site act as if my Technicians are my Reciptionists. This is not the way i would like to see the IT Industry.

By: Tina Aspiala

Tina Aspiala — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:14:33 +0000

I think this thread has been useful in that it has brought up what I think is the real reason we don't hear from more qualified women: Women often feel uncomfortable marketing themselves, or claiming skills they don't have 100% covered. I've been guilty of this. When I've been asked to make someone a web page, I've heard myself give all kinds of caveats about how I'm not a total pro, despite the hundreds of self-styled "experts" on the web, advertising skills I can tell are far more basic than my own. I'm also more likely to admit when I don't know something, or if I've been wrong, or to "see the other guy's point of view" in a discussion, only to notice later on that these were interpreted as signs of weakness and lack of expertise. Enough complaining. Here's a potential solution, which may already exist, though I haven't found it: A social networking site related to tech, maybe limited to women (at first?) where women post profiles, links to things they've done, and give each other advice on forums, and (this is crucial) write testimonials on each other's profiles/give each other points. This would allow certain top tech women to get more exposure without forcing them to additionally break through the "nice girls aren't pushy" collar that many of us were given by our parents and educational institutions. Why keep this theoretical site women-only? Because women have this additional obstacle to get through, that most men don't seem to. Men are told to get out there and get visible. Women are told to wait and be found.

By: Matthias

Matthias — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:32:20 +0000

I can understand how in this modern world your comments could be mistaken, but I believe you are entirely right in your assertion that gender diversity need not be considered.

By: Null is Love » Blog Archive » Where are all the women?

Null is Love » Blog Archive » Where are all the women? — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 17:54:37 +0000

[...] about the poor ratio of female to male speakers at web conferences. Later posts on this thread are here, here, here, here and here. (There were many [...]

By: Luke Dorny

Luke Dorny — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 16:59:45 +0000

I’m part Nordic (Dansk).
Does that make me diverse? …where? Certainly not in Denmark.
But in LA i’m diverse.

Kudos on your stance, Mr. Meyer.

By: Karl Jacobs

Karl Jacobs — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 19:19:51 +0000

I see one basic flaw.

You are regurgitating the same list of “experts” for these conferences. And while having a field of experts is a good thing, how about making an effort to find a few folks with new voices and new things to say? Regardless of their “diversity”…

By: ::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon » Diversity and the Web2Open

::HorsePigCow:: marketing uncommon » Diversity and the Web2Open — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:36:06 +0000

[...] that I’m pushing on this at the moment is because I want to highlight that, in light of the myriad of conversations about diversity that are recurring, we are actually trying a little [...]

By: Anne Stansell

Anne Stansell — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:14:50 +0000

I appreciate the comments to this post, but it seems to me that everyone is focusing on the problem rather than providing solutions. I understood your call to action to include recommendations for speakers, yet I didn't see any (admittedly skimming comments). So here"s one to help widen your net: Heather Dority – Entrepreneur, Usability Expert and Web Enthusiast.

By: That Voodoo You Do · Diversity and the High School Dance

That Voodoo You Do · Diversity and the High School Dance — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 09:02:08 +0000

[...] women speakers in our industry was reignited by Eric Meyer’s recent post where he said “as a conference organizer, I don”t care about diversity.” This set off what is apparently called a blogostorm, with lots of passionate [...]

By: kunter ilalan

kunter ilalan — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:08:32 +0000

preface; Eric Meyer is a very well known, besides, by no means even a less respectable figure to hold such an accepted personality among the webdev people world-wide. I'm not his attorney. Walking in the same direction on the same pave at which he's on the lead nearly of 4 years puts me in that position. the DIVERSITY only in the intensions as Meyer originally summed up, this explains why I 'll be sorry for not being able to attend the coming AEA gathering:

Well, I"m hereby bucking that trend. In my personal view, diversity is not of itself important, and I don"t feel that I have anything to address next time around. What"s important is technical expertise, speaking skills, professional stature, brand appropriateness, and marketability. That"s it. That"s always been the alpha and omega of my thinking, and it will continue to be so the next time, and time after that, and the time after that.

I strongly believe in the proficiencies of these seminar participants ( who are not amongst the list, I won't count ) and I never had thought why there ain't gonna be no gals or black persons, or say, asians unemployeds disabled people et cetera ..it just never finishes As far as my opinion is concerned, your great looking organization is already promising, attractive, and is should be worth every penny spending for! However, from the same jealousy point of view, Mr. Meyer should by no means pay any attention to such magazine-kind artificial disturbances so he doesn't lose his current focus. P.S. Btw, I came up to meyerweb after several months following T.Çelik's post on his website, following a W3C article about slideshows. Forget the events, I fail following the webdev blogs! anyway .. I seriously need God to arrange my works or I can never catch up with the date. He also helps convincing big guys to use our web expertise in a country where " outlook " seems to be everything - the rest means " nothing ". Serious B2B / B2C education is needed over here. See Erik ? this is our business, not that one :) best regards..

By: Sandy

Sandy — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 19:38:32 +0000

It is important that the responses to this blog correctly represent the diversity of the web — otherwise, those calling here for more diversity on Eric’s event are failing to trip over their own chewing gum.

That is why I have not posted. I fit the existing diversity-spectrum (eg reasonabily fluent in english) too well. Let’s have some silence among ourselves while those others take time to comment.