My First ETech Comments

So I'm back from a wonderful week at ETech (and time off for other unexpected emergencies). I have a ton of individual posts to make on various ETech-related topics, but here's my first cut of some highlights:

No women. (No surprise)
(I'll say more on that at the end of this post).

LifeHacks by Danny O'Brien and Merlin Mann rocked.
I was so motivated I had to join the crowd and bought a copy of David Allen's book, Getting Things Done. I'm also making 43 folders a daily visit. The fact that these guys talked about the whole productivity thing in terms of "protecting your flow state" was what really did it for me. I'm all about flow : )
Here are Cory Doctorow's notes from the talk.

James Surowiecki talked on The Wisdom of Crowds and I had to rush out and buy that book as well.

Danny Hillis' Applied Minds is probably the most fun place a person could ever work.
Cory has notes on that one as well.

I could listen to George Dyson talk for 24 hours straight...
Wow. Here are David Weinberger's notes from George's talk.

I managed to do my entire 3.5 hour tutorial without once using the word "remix". I should get a prize for that... I'm pretty sure I'm the only ETech speaker to make that claim.

I loved Joel Spolsky's talk on making people happy.
Other attendees weren't so thrilled, given that they thought it was going to be about "community building." He came close to what we talk about here on passionate users, and I went away delighted (and humming "Sweet Home Alabama") and with a few new ideas. He rocks.

Oh yeah, we won the Jolt Award!!
(This took place not at ETech, but at the Software Development Conference happening at the same time in San Jose.) Head First Design Patterns took the top spot in technical books. Way to go Team Head First, and especially Eric and Beth!! Our Servlets book was one of the finalists, but didn't win. Winning the top award was a big shock for us...

I'm horrified to admit that I now want a TabletPC.
I know, I know. But when I explain it all in another post, you'll see. The guy responsible for this is Brady Forrest, who I may never forgive for making me lust--for the first time in my life (and hopefully last)--after a device that runs Windows. I must stop reading Robert Scoble, because I'm pretty sure he slips subliminal Tablet PC messages into his blog.

The Maker Fair made me seriously want to learn how to solder.
It was inspired by O'Reilly's new DIY Make magazine. I've never been one for meat-space projects (I like building virtual things instead), but I'm not sure that anyone didn't come away from this "grown up science fair" with a few project ideas.

OK, now back to the where-are-the-women thing...

I try to avoid this topic because I have such strong (passionate?) opinions about it, and they don't seem to be very popular views. In a nutshell, I am intensely against the view that tech conferences are somehow female-unfriendly. All I am willing to agree with are a few facts:

* There are far fewer women attending tech conferences than men
* The imbalance of men-to-women at these conferences is greater than the imbalance that exists in the working world. More men who work in IT attend conferences than women who work in IT.
* There are fewer presentations given by women. To me, this is a pretty direct reflection of fewer women involved PERIOD.

What I do NOT agree with:

* The idea that there is even the slightest hint of some attempt to keep women out of this world. I can't imagine a single geek at ETech saying, "These things are really best when it's just us guys..."
* That women are made to feel uncomfortable, pushed-out, or that it's all a boy's club at tech conferences. In fact, as a woman who's probably been to about 50 tech conferences over the last decade (I'm kind of an addict), I can't imagine a more ridiculous idea. I'm not saying that there aren't women who feel that way, but if they are, it's most likely their own perceptual problem. I'm definitely not going to accept the charge some women have brought against me that I'm either too clueless to even notice when I'm being disparaged, discounted, whatever, or that the fact that I don't notice all these slights just proves their point that it's so pervasive I can't even see it. I'm not stupid, clueless, or insensitive. But I'm also one of those who has a glass-half-full attitude and it takes one hell of a lot to "offend" me. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt and don't assume the worst. When I have had trouble at a tech job, it has never been something I can honestly attribute to being a woman. It might have been because my boss was an idiot, or I was an idiot, but whether either of us was male or female really isn't the cause.
* That women aren't attending because there aren't enough women presenters. Sorry, but I think that's bullshit, although any conference would benefit from more diversity of thought, I just don't believe that this is why women aren't attending conferences.
* That women aren't being selected as presenters because they're women. While I can't honestly say that this has never happened at anyconference, this just doesn't make any sense. The conference presenters are pretty damn motivated to offer topics attendees want to attend (and are willing to pay for), as opposed to some conspiracy (or even subconscious motivation) to keep women out.

Having said all that, I have no idea why more women aren't attending. I love love love attending conferences. I'm not there for my career, or networking, or anything other than the pure joy of learning and getting new ideas. And I get those both from the sessions and from interacting with other excited, passionate, smart people. Having more women--or actually just more diversity of thought would make any conference better for everyone, but that doesn't stop me from having a fabulous time.

I think one of the most damaging things is when people spread this meme that "women don't go to these conferences because they aren't made to feel welcome." The more we say this, the less likely it is that women will go. (Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that.) We need a serious reframing. And often the same people who make this claim (and for very good intentions, and based on their own passionately-held beliefs), would bristle at the notion that women can't get out their and kick ass. If women need to "feel welcome" before they'll attend a conference, then what does that say?

Now, if the conference attendees were all huddled over their machines and pulling one another over to check out their latest porn sites, then yeah, that would be uncomfortable, and I'd stop going. But that's not how it is!. So far, the people at conferences who talk about porn are usually women. And remember--we're talking about geeks here. Sexy as she is, I think Boing Boing's Xeni barely turned a head at ETech... because the guys were all too busy gawking over the feral robots.

And did I mention the whole bathroom perk?

In a market-driven economy, it just makes sense that if more women attend, and if it turns out (although this is often not the case) that women want different kinds of topics, then they will speak with their dollars. Show up at the conferences, pay your entrance fees, fill out your evaluations, and then we can talk about whether there really is a problem with women deliberately being turned down because they're women. Life is too short not to be out there soaking up all the great things that happen at these conferences. I think it would be far more productive to just go to conferences as a participant. Talk to attendees. Get to know what people are interested in. If nothing else, it'll up your chances of submitting a proposal that'll be accepted. But any person (male or female) who wants on as a presenter should make sure they have paid lots of attendee dues--to really learn and understand the paying attendee's perspective.

And having said that, I will say that there are people much smarter than me who have a lot more to say about it, even if I disagree with much of it, they do get me to think. More discussions of women and ETech are at David Weinberger's blog and the outspoken (and very WELL spoken) Shelly Powers blog entry on ETech. Have fun : )