Where are the female speakers on web conferences?

Written on December 30, 2007 – 2:47 pm
Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of Fleck

WoW large After the post about the need for a female Steve Jobs and in search for a female role model I thought it might be a good idea to take a look at technology conferences.

Go to any web conference (LeWeb3, TechCrunch40, The Next Web, FOWA, you name it..) and one thing that cannot go by unnoticed is that almost all speakers are men. There are a few simple explanations for this (apart from the standard explanations), one of them is that men tend to be more passionate about technology and the web then women do. Another can be that men are at higher or at least more ‘visible’ positions. Also it may be that men are more experienced speakers. But the web is new, it transforms things, it changes the way we do business and it shouldn’t make any difference between men and women. As it is a fairly new sector, it exists only 5000 days, this is THE opportunity for talented women to take the lead over men (not that it should be like a kind of war).

I believe there is a huge opportunity for talented women to become the most wanted speakers in the tech scene. Conferences are more then willing to invite women to their stage (they have to be really good though). So who are the women we all should watch? Some of the women I’m following are:

Leah Culver
Deborah Schultz
Kathy Sierra
Anne Wojcicki (Co-founder of 23andme.com)
Esther Dyson
Caterina Fake

To get Web 2.0 to the next level we need a female Steve Jobs. A woman with passion for the web, amazing presentation skills and humor.

I’m looking forward to see more women speaking at events (also at The Next Web conference, to write about startups founded by women, to know what is going on on the female side of the web (so if there are women who like to write for The Next Web, please let us know).

I hope you like that post!

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Anne Wojciki, conferences, deborah schultz, Esther Dyson, Kathy Sierra, women

About the author: Patrick de Laive is co-founder of Fleck and initiator of The Next Web Conference, Bowlr and OpenCoffee Amsterdam. Check his LinkedIn profile for more information.

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17 comments/trackbacks to “Where are the female speakers on web conferences?”

Dec 30, 2007: Bookmarks Tagged Web 2.0
[...] bookmarks tagged web 2.0 Where are the female speakers on web conferences? saved by 12 others Skra1250 bookmarked on 12/30/07 | [...]
Mar 13, 2008: Searching for female web heroes
[...] week at London Open Coffee Meet-up, the issue of female speakers at the Next Web Conference and the lack thereof came up, as discussed earlier by Boris and Patrick. [...]
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[...] been talking a lot about women on the web on this blog. Simone Brummelhuis, author of the series of Women on the web, [...]
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By Jacqueline on Dec 30, 2007

Here I am so just give me a call or a tweet. And I will be happy to speak for you…

Reply
By Martha on Dec 30, 2007

Patrick, it strikes me as I look through the blogs of the ‘women to watch’ that they are radically different than those of the male bloggers I read (techcrunch, Logic and Emotion, The Forge, 1000 by 1000). The graphics, the design, tone and the nature of the content are for the most part warmer, and more personal.
Perhaps this is a function of the blogs that I read for tech issues are just that ‘tech blogs’, or perhaps it is because women don’t work or think like men? Perhaps it is simply a function of the blogs you chose…but I think it still points to the heart of the question you pose, and the problem that needs solving - where are the women speakers? Where are the female Steve Jobs? We are here, watching. How can we get involved and engaged?

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By Jacqueline on Dec 30, 2007

@Martha I wonder if you do agree with me about this: maybe the questions Patrick is/was asking may not be the right ones to get women involved? What do you think?

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By Martha on Dec 30, 2007

@Jacqueline His questions are valid ones - where are we?? Why don’t we want the high profile jobs? Why aren’t we interested in taking on speaking roles? Perhaps we need to reframe who he is asking. Let’s talk those women who are ‘high profile’ what it is that has drawn them to these roles?
Are they women who would succeed in any field but shrewdly have chosen this one?
This would be a really enlightening discourse to enter into, and one that may give us answers, and then the keys to how to engage the other women.

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By Jacqueline on Dec 30, 2007

@Martha: You are right I guess about these questions being valid ones more, even in a more broad sense. But what I meant to say was-it’s the English (I am Dutch) that is getting in my way here- that I talked about this questions with the actively online women around me and not one of them felt they should react or comment on this. And when I asked why not I got answers like’I don’t like being asked or talked to because of me being a woman’. Like I have posted before, I would be happy to not only discuss but also to speak on this topic offline too. Since I have the feeling this too has to do with what I call human to human marketing. You can find my presentation on it here: http://tinyurl.com/29oc68 or read more about this on my blog (in Dutch)over here: http://tinyurl.com/2twtbe

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By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 30, 2007

Last year I spoke with a lot of potential speakers for the Next Web Conference. One important difference between the men and women I spoke was that the women were just not interested in the opportunity to speak on stage. They asked ‘Why would I do that? What do I have to win?” while men said ‘Cool, I’m honored! How many people do you expect? Wow, that many?!”. I concluded that men are more interested in appearance and ego enhancing activities than women. Women are simply trying to get their job done.

But when I explained my small little unscientific theory to a women she shrugged and said ‘Maybe you should have a women inviting these women”. Well, I’ll try that this year. But it would be great if women would show some initiative too. Do we really have to drag them into ‘our’ world? Are men the only people who understand that promotion, presentation and appearance is important?

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By Nina on Dec 30, 2007

Instead of commenting or blogging purely on ‘tech’, women may prefer to focus on tech applications that affect people in meaningful ways, providing more of a human interest angle. Tech, for the sake of tech, isn’t that interesting to me, as a woman, but if there’s a fitting application that improves lives, I’m far more compelled to pay attention. Interest in sports may be analogous. My husband can watch pretty much any sports team, without necessarily knowing who the players are (simply for the technical love of the game), whereas I can’t drum up any interest unless it’s a local team and I know something about the individual players (the human interest angle). More women, in my opinion, will become increasingly engaged with tech (and will move up in the corporate ranks) as its relevance becomes more tangible (Facebook, IMHO, is not yet a truly meaningful application of social networking technology.)

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By Patrick de Laive on Dec 31, 2007

@jacqueline Would love to meet you in person and share thoughts on the web, human interaction, marketing, public speaking etc. I’m living in Amsterdam.

In case you like the idea, you can reach me at patrick@thenextweb.org

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By Martha on Dec 31, 2007

@Jaqueline! Your English is great. Much better than my Dutch.
It’s great to see us (2 women) have a good discussion on this matter. I have deleted this comment now 6 or 7 times, as it keeps veering off topic. We should have this discussion in a better forum though and perhaps include Patrick as well.
It is such an important question.

@Boris, we need to draw women in somehow because they represent 1/2 the market share! Numbers are money. The car companies have figured it out, politicians are getting there. The bankers know it, investors do to. If we can get get more women in the door and up the ladder it benefits us all.

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By deb schultz on Jan 4, 2008

Hi Patrick - wow, thanks for including me in such auspicious company. I truly respect the women listed and am honored.

This is a topic near and dear to my heart - stay tuned for a post [trackback of course] as well as some additional must read names.

Nina - love your comment [which i can relate to] - that we women do tend to write more about the application of tech more than the guts of tech.

Jaqueline - love your preso on marketing being human.
A few months back women bloggers all over the net tagged each other [started in the states] precisely for this reason] - it was dubbed the “w-list” and was started by one of my favorite bloggers [and european!] Valeria Maltoni.

http://www.conversationagent.c.....power.html

P.S. - just to show that we can sometimes promote ourselves first - my ‘official tag’ is debschultz…;)

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By Jacqueline on Jan 4, 2008

@debschultz: Thnx for the compliment and I am looking forward to your post on this topic.

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By areader on Jan 7, 2008

Speaking of which, I think you accidentally let Maria into your Tipr team. (I’m being facetious, you have to try pretty hard to have such a large http://thenextweb.org/team with only one woman in it.)

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By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Jan 7, 2008

@areader: good point!

Reply

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