I don’t deny that having a “spotlight spot” would be a good idea that wouldn’t threaten the success of a conference. I agree with everyone on that. I just don’t think it’s fair to jump on conference organizers the way that some folks have, or to suggest that they’ve been doing something wrong because they haven’t been investing energy in this situation prior to now.

I also think that, as some in this discussion have mentioned, the diversity issue has to cover more than just women and people of African descent, because otherwise we’ll just have a diverse conference full of hypocrites.

If the barriers already exist is it laudable to be blind to them? Given equally knowledgeble, well-spoken candidates I want you to give me the one I’ve heard from less.

Read my post again. I specifically said that we shouldn’t have barriers for anybody. What I also said (which nobody seems to want to try to tackle) is that the absence of female speakers does not automatically mean that the men organizing the conferences are deliberately excluding them. It also doesn’t mean that these organizers should have to go recruit people because of their gender or race. That puts the wrong criterion at the top of the filter.

Just because discrimination doesn’t hurt your bottom line doesn’t make it right.

Should women have the opportunity to work in the field? Yes. Should there be no barriers to women speaking at a conference? Yes. Does the absence of women speaking at conferences automatically imply a gender-specific barrier? No. It does not. There is more than one possible explanation for the disparity. The answer to gender imbalance does not always have to be “power-hungry boy’s club.”

If the conferences were to have more female representation, I would think no less of them. If they were all-female at the lectern, I would have no problem. Just like it doesn’t bother me to be in a situation where I am instructed by people of a different ethnicity or faith. It doesn’t bother me, because the nature of the person has nothing to do with why I’m at the engagement. If I want to go to a talk about how men feel when they hit fifty, I’ll want mostly men talking. If I want to go to a talk about how women feel when they hit menopause, I’ll want mostly (okay, ALL) women talking. But if I go to a talk about Web Standards, or apple pie, or star-gazing, I don’t give a crap who’s at the lectern so long as that person is qualified. That person’s gender or race has nothing to do with the event, and it shouldn’t.

Some of you should go read Tantek’s post about this.

Out of curiosity, why is it particularly important that this field has to have diversity in its ranks?

This field already has a good degree of diversity in its ranks; that’s the point you’re missing. But it’s a damn sight harder to feel like you’re a welcomed and valued part of that field if you never see anyone like you standing at that lectern.

Similar to the proportion of women in the physical sciences – high at undergraduate level, around 25-30% or so at postgrad level then decreasing down to 10% or so (in the UK and USA) by the time you get to tenured faculty. Oddly enough, the proportion of female academic scientists is higher in traditionally macho countries (Mexico, Italy, Spain).

Sorry, don’t have any answers, just tangentially-related observations.

If you liked the idea I proposed about existing speakers mentoring aspiring presenters, then please pop a link up to Make Me A Speaker! Set it up a couple of hours ago, already got some great people offering to mentor others (and a similarly great list of folks interested in being mentored and learning more about how to become a great speaker).

I would, honestly, attend a speech given by a carrot if that carrot was recognized as a leader in the field. That”s what professional speeches are all about.

May I be the first to propose that @media 2007 be introduced by an aubergine?

I will gladly support the idea of a diverse workforce, but why does a certain profession–or each profession, for that matter–have to contain a diverse working population?

I say we should target discrimination where we see it, but we should not assume its presence where there is no conclusive proof. A lack of females in IT does not prove discrimination. It could be a symptom of it, but you need more than the presence of one symptom to prove that the discrimination exists. I’m not saying that we have to prove it in a court of law; I can be swayed by compelling evidence. I just don’t think that the absence of something is enough proof that such an absence is mandated by those in charge.

It’s especially disturbing to me that people are jumping on Eric and other event coordinators. I believe one of the articles that Eric quotes lays out the financial situation for one of these events: it isn’t about expanding and grabbing a larger audience–it’s about being able to succeed in an endeavor for which they’ve already booked space, service, and people. There might be several, maybe more than several people who have seen all of these speakers before. As for myself, I’ve never been to one of the conferences, and, quite frankly, if I’m going to fork out the money to attend one in the near future, I would like to hear Eric speak. I would like to hear Zeldman speak. I would like to hear Cederholm. The cost of attending one of these conferences is not cheap for an independent developer, and I’m not going to spend that kind of cash to hear somebody whose credibility I am assured of second-hand.

Several people in this discussion have talked about expanding the audience. I think they’ll accomplish that by sticking to their current agenda: getting the best speakers possible, regardless of anything but the credentials of those speakers. If you’ve been to the conference before and don’t want to see the same people, I’ve a feeling that your slot will be an easy fill, because there are plenty–like myself–who will finally find themselves with the time and the money to go and see something wonderful and informative that they’ve only been able to read about until now.

If the problem is that the industry isn’t encouraging minorities to become speakers so there aren’t any in the mix, well that’s a different issue. In my experience, web development and the surrounding fields are by no means dominated by white males; in fact over three jobs and eight years in the industry I’ve worked with precisely four other white guys who did what I do, or close (one of whom was deaf, if we’re counting). Everyone else (30+) has been either female (the _vast_ majority in fact) or non-white or both.

The thing about the web is that you build your reputation online, and as such it doesn’t matter what you are, as long as what you’re saying makes sense to enough people. Case in point: I read a web analytics blog by a guy named Avinash Kaushik. I assume from his name that he’s of Indian descent, but so what? He’s a smart guy with a lot of experience, an entertaining style and an interesting angle. If he was an Inuit woman or a Nigerian tribal elder or the Hamburglar, would it make any difference? Do people discount his opinion cos he sounds like he might be Indian? I honestly don’t know, but his blog’s popularity in that field continues to skyrocket and he doesn’t seem to be hurting for speaking engagements, so I’d have to conclude no.

Maybe it would be more helpful to ask why it always seems to be the same faces with more or less the same presentations (no offence intended). Similar to previous posters, I’ve skipped conferences that I could have attended, simply because I feel like I’m not going to get much out of it; Eric, Molly, Gerry, Kelly, Jeffrey, Jeffrey, Bryan and Jeffrey, Jared, Christine, Christina, Josh, Hagan, Nathan.. to name but a few.. they’re all good and some are great. But I can’t afford to take a week off work to see the same (admittedly awesome) presentations I saw six months ago. Are we locked in a cycle? The events can only work financially with “big names”, therefore big names are the only ones invited? Perhaps event organisers can “work in” some up-and-coming speakers, “on the side stage” so to speak.

For what it’s worth, the best conference session I ever saw was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s keynote at UI10. It wasn’t really anything to do with the web at all, nor did he really try to make it so. Maybe that is a direction that could be taken, to find some speakers who have things to say that aren’t explicitly ‘web’ but that can open an attendee’s mind to approaching a problem differently.

Sorry to ramble. I just feel like perhaps all this navel-gazing is missing the point.

Amy, why would you think that a profession that not only has few women in it, but has actually be losing women is perfectly acceptable?

Is it because you yourself don’t experience problems, and therefore they must not exist?

Is it that you prefer working more with men?

I’m not being antagonistic — I’m trying to understand the women who have commented here who don’t think there’s any problem, who basically seem to equate this whole discussion with ‘positive’ discrimination.

I’m also curious — how long have you been in the field and did you come through a comp sci degree program?