Virginia DeBolt
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I'm interested in technology, web education, and writing. I create a daily writing prompt at First 50 Words and write about web education and web tec...
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Gender Diversity at SXSW

March 15, 2007 7:19 am by Virginia DeBolt in Tech
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A huge number of BlogHers were at the SXSW Interactive conference. I'm sure Liz Henry will lead you to her photos on Flickr from the BlogHer meetup. It was packed! My Flickr photos show quite a few BlogHers as well.

The BlogHer meetup doesn't prove gender diversity at the conference, of course, but the photos the various panels do give you an idea. SXSW is the gold standard for doing it right. This is what we would like to see other conference panel groups looking like!

I didn't take shots of the audience, but if you find any on Flickr, you'll notice that it wasn't completely white male filling the conference room seats. Diversity works at SXSW. It can work in other tech conferences, too, if we help to make it happen by extending the effort to be both participants and speakers.

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Virginia DeBolt
Virginia DeBolt 5 pts

You're right, of course. The conference organizers have to do more, a lot more. But those of us on the outside need to extend ourselves a bit, too, and try to be the change we wish to see in the world. For example, the BlogHer sponsored open source panel at SXSW could be taken on the road to almost any tech conference and would be an impressive panel.

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

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Elisa Camahort
Elisa Camahort 5 pts

I will continue to beat this drum:

Yes, if women and others want more diversity, we need to provide the SUPPLY...supply of attendees and speakers.

But SXSW does a better job at diversity because the organizers DEMAND it, and do specific and constant outreach.

The onus is on both sides to make things better...not just on the folks who have been overlooked, marginalized and are on the weaker side of the power equation to being with when it comes to this issue.

Thanks for bringing this up Virginia, because I really do applaud Hugh Forrest and the efforts he has made since last year to improve not just gender diversity, but diversity in general at SXSW.

Elisa Camahort
BlogHer and Worker Bees
elisa@blogher.org/elisa@workerbees.biz

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