Prometheus 6

Let's follow some footprints outward from Liza's complaint.

Okay, it's actually all rooted in The Republic of T for her. Me, I'm positive Oliver Willis posted something last night, but it is not there now. I wasn't going to get specific about that, but Mr. Daou said he'd invited Mr. Willis when he explained to Liza why there were none at the meeting.

several bloggers were invited who couldn't attend, including
Oliver Willis (who you didn't mention in your post). Also, I was told =
that more events like that are planned, and there will be an opportunity to
invite bloggers who didn't attend the first one.

So respectfully, you may have reached a conclusion without all the =
facts.

Remember that.

Anyway, Micah Sifry weighed in, which I mention as a "via" link because it led me to Chris Messina...a self-described geek and, as I recall, a fellow Drupal maven, who feels the techies have the same sorta problem. He impressed me by recognizing the issue isn't so much diversity as inclusion.

And that's not the only point he got right.

I talked to Ryan Carson and Lisa about this — about why there was so little diversity (especially gender diversity) at FoWA. Apparently they did dry to recruit some women speakers, but the two that came to mind didn’t respond in time; so the Carson crew got tied up organizing everything else and the matter fell by the wayside. Once they had their final speaker line up, it was too late.

Perhaps if the issue had been raised far enough in advance, something could have been done (take for example the upcoming 45:2 AJAX Experience conference — all but 3 are white — apparently their trademark “No Fluff, Just Stuff” refers to minorities). This is what Elisa Camahort of BlogHer, says:

The solution is for event organizers to care about diversity in their own planning stage, not after they’ve already spent the time securing and then announcing dozens and dozens of speakers.

Totally.

Also, here's a seriously precise statement of the problem, in both the technical and political spheres:

To understand why there’s an absence of diverse voices speaking at events, one needs to ask the event organizers directly. And whenever I see their responses, it’s always the same - that those contacted weren’t available or took too long to respond.

Strange. How could so many conferences contact so few diverse people and get the same type of response over and over?

Which leads me to believe that event organizers are only contacting a small handful of people whom they consider diverse. That’s has to be the reason.

And if any white folks are still around, Elisa Camahort lists the very responses we're all accustomed to hearing.

Let me enumerate the typical responses:

1. Ignore it altogether. That would be the F*ck You response #1.

2. Respond and say that you chose speakers based on competence not genitalia (or color or whatever.) That would be the F*ck You response #2.

3. Respond and say that you have some women, and it simply reflects larger issues in tech or society, and you can't fix that with your itty bitty little conference. That would be the F*ck You response #3.

4. Respond and say that you posted one call for speakers message one time on your one conference blog (read by 10s if not hundreds of people) and if different speakers didn't come to you, well, really that's their fault, not yours. That would be the F*ck You response #4. This one is VERY popular.

and finally...

5. Respond and say that you're really sorry, and that you're so glad this was brought to your attention, and that next year you'll do so much better. And then a year later, it starts all over. This is sort of the time-released F*ck You response.

I wonder though...which blognet will get it right first. Which will get it right at all. I actually have more faith in the techie crew because no one (important) sees technological advances as threatening...EVERYONE sees political advancement as threatening.