Finding Women Speakers — Jason Preston

Aliza Sherman in an engaging rejoinder to Arrington’s Women in Tech post:

And I am so interested in hearing exactly how much time you spend - how much exactly is an “extraordinary amount of time finding those qualified women and asking them to speak?” A few days? A few weeks? A few months? And how many women, exactly? A dozen? Half a dozen? Three? And how do you actually go about doing this? What is your methodology for identifying, tracking down and approaching women? How hard is it, really?

As a conference organizer, you spend a disproportionate amount of time looking for women speakers. Put another way, using the same “find speaker” methodology you will discover one woman for every ten men (this seems roughly tied to the proportion of women in tech?).
In my experience, women have recommended other female speakers to us, although it does not usually fill the gender gap.
Speaker discovery methodology usually involves a combination of the following (among other less common things, of course): reaching out to obvious high-profile individuals in your particular topic area (3-4), posting a submission form on your web site and sorting through approximately 60-70 (at least) speaker submissions, 99% male, and reaching out specifically to women in your network and asking them if they know other qualified female speakers.
You CAN fill half your speaker roster with women, if you really do work hard at it. But it raises interesting questions, especially if you are hosting a paid educational conference, because for whatever reason, my experience teaches me that you are unlikely to find as many women speakers who are equally qualified to speak on their given topic as you will find male speakers. To clarify: this is not to say that said female speakers don’t exist, but rather that given the constraints of the event business, finding them is part of a trade-off. So you often need to decide if you want a 50/50 balance in your speaker list or a more engaging conference.

So why bother?

Honestly, the most engaging event you can put together is one where both men and women, who are equally qualified, are equally involved. As an event producer, it’s your mission to work your butt off to put together the best possible experience for your attendees.

Tech events are part of the tech ecosystem, and are certainly part of the cycle. How many women attend tech events? It’s related to how many women are on stage. How many women are on stage? It’s related to how many women are in tech. How many women are in tech? It’s related to how many women attend tech events.

In short: Aliza, we are constantly, unendingly looking for women to speak on topics relevant to our audiences. And it is, unsurprisingly, hard to take an industry that is, by everyone’s numbers, extremely male dominated, and make it appear fully balanced on stage. But it’s worth working on. Judging by your Twitter account it seems like you might have some interesting stories to tell - please send me an e-mail and let’s talk about what you can share.