The Future of White Male Apps

I just registered so I'll be representin'.

And also, it seems like the future is sometime in 2004.

Test: Name ten women qualified to speak at a Carson workshop and why the attendees should want to hear them speak, and how they might influence otherwise uniterested people to attend. Extra points for including women fluent in Rails. Go.

So the event description says, "Discover how the web's most successful sites and applications were built, plus get expert practical advice from the best in the business on creating your own web app."

That would lead me to suggest Caterina Fake (though since Cal is speaking, that would be a bit strange) or Mena, since both are qualified to speak about how they built successful web apps. I note that several of the men speaking are not programmers, so I don't think Caterina or Mena's lack of hardcore programming skills should disqualify them. I also think Gina Trapani would be great, though it seems like they want people who've built famous apps (Digg, Flickr, etc.) or at least work at big companies (i.e. Coates at Yahoo).

I think part of the problem with the lack of women at this event is its focus. If it's going to be a look at how the best web apps were made, well, you're going to end up with mostly male speakers because most companies are started by men, esp. software companies. If you look at the description of what people are talking about though, it seems like you could easily find women to address some of these themes. Caterina could talk about "Selling and funding: pros and cons of bringing in a third party" as well as Ev. Or danah boyd could talk about "directions in social change on the web" as much as Coates. "10 things you didn't know about RSS" could definitely be done by Gina. Christina Wodtke could talk about IA in web apps.

I don't think you need to go as far as Sarah's challenge. You can look at what's being talked about and ask yourself, "Is there a woman in the industry who could talk about this?*" If the answer is honestly no, then it makes sense that a man is filling the slot. If not, I think it demonstrates probably some combination of laziness on the part of the conference organizers to develop a diverse pool of speakers and bad luck. For all we know, they did invite some women and the timing just wasn't right.**

Conspiracy theory: In looking over the conference site more closely, I notice that many of the speakers work for companies listed as sponsors. Maybe sponsors get speaking slots? That would explain why the list is not only men but big co. men. (Which is also annoying, as if independent people aren't doing things, or small companies aren't doing things. IMO that's the future of web apps!)

* At the same level, with similar experience, etc.

** This is often what I hear from conference organizers when I ask about this issue. Of course, if you only invite one or two women, the chances of ending up with no women speakers is higher than if you invite eight or ten.

There is no excuse for a conference with a lineup like this. You would think that Blogher and all the earlier criticisms (that is from 2004, but with a little more searching I could have found one from 1994) would have changed things.

"Sarah, are you saying that women should have to pass a litmus test that men don't?"

Oh no, of course not. But I don't think just having women speak for the sake of diversity is the solution. There are a lot of very qualified women and men not represented on panels like this, and it's not because they haven't enough check boxes near their names, it's just because they're not visible. An alternative to simply complaining about the lack of women visibly involved is to suggest specific people to step up, and perhaps put out a call to order.

I have this same conversation in different colors each time there's a Getting Real conference or Building of Basecamp workshop. There's very little female presence there and it's always very obvious to everyone, just as it's obvious that a certain demographic tends to weigh the room down. Seminars, conferences, workshops, they all could do very well with more diversity of race and sex and age, but just *saying* that isn't going to do anything.

Encouraging women to be more involved and, like Meg did so wonderfully, point out certain people we'd all love to see taking part, that helps change things.

Fine Mike, you can coax me out -- but only because you asked so nicely.

I think Meg -- or was that Caterina -- said things best in the above comment. For every guy represented there, there's a woman who can take on that topic. The thing is that these conference organizers know that they need to pull their attendees in with the big names and, right now, these men are the well-known names in this space.

But it's more than that. I have a feeling that many of these men up there got on the speaker's list because another speaker (man) asked. And, (here comes the anger) for the most part the women I know aren't so much into the conference circle jerk. Like you said, a lot of these guys are great people and great contributors, so I'm not wanting to personally attack them. However, it must dawn on them when they see the list that it's damn male and damn white.

And as far as asking me -- no, I wasn't asked. I'm happy to be building the application of the future -- guess what, you're soaking in it -- to worry about not being there. But I would have been a lot less disgusted if other good women were speaking.

And it's not about quota or tokenism -- it's about not wanting to hear the same old story from the same old faces. And, frankly, a good number of the men I hear speaking at conferences are played out.

Oh Mike, you know we ladies can't speak in public, I mean, we'd spend so much time picking oour outfits and trying out hairdos we'd never make it to the podium on time!

Seriously, though, I'm seeing fewer and fewer women represented as this industry evolves in these kinds of events, which leads me to believe there's a young old boy thing developing. If I was new to the field or considering it, it would put me off. Hell, I'm already in the field and it puts me off. But you and I have had that conversation before.

What I am seeing is the same folk (male folk) speaking at the conferences on web apps. It has become a circle jerk.

On Saturday night I was at an after-party for an all-male speaker line-up web app conferencne talking to someone who is organizing another conference and pitched him on my speaking on mobile. He deferred and said that the line up was confirmed, sorry.

But... when I mentioned that he had missed Liza Sabater, a Python developer (BlogHer & Culture Kitchen), he got excited and asked for her contact info.

I concluded that this gentleman was not against women speaking, but needed people who had "hard" app / api experience, rather than a practioner / passionate person heavily invested in a subject or spot of the web / internets.

Every Web conference I have attended in the last year, it has been the design / inspirational speakers (Tom Coates at Carson Summit in Feb, Jeff V. & Mena T at SXSW, Mena & Maggie Mason at BlogHer, Jeff V last friday) that have excited the crowd the most, so why do the organizers keep focusing on the programmers/developers of specific applications?

Is it play out on folks' desire to get rich on selling an app (how did Jeff do it? how did Mena & Ben do it? How did Shaun I do it?) to a large multi-national corporation rather than the love of the creation and web?

Thanks for writing this.
I didn't really think about it too much before, but now that you mention it (and put it out there so well) I passionately feel the same way you and others do.

Oops. Forgot to make it a hyperlink: http://www.mikeschinkel.com/blog/TheWhiteMansWeb20Club.aspx

Curious - did anyone here attend? I enjoyed most of the speakers but was also a bit surprised about the lack of diversity, not only amongst those giving the talks but the attendees as well.

Ted Rheingold did a kickass job of demonstrating that the future of webapps is all about fostering passionate communities. The folks at Yahoo did a good job, and Jeff Veen made great points about giving up control, letting your users have fun with the interface, etc. Jeff (or was it Ted?) also gave a nod to Vox. So despite its flaws, I learned quite a lot and enjoyed the conference. But I was sad that I didn't get a chance to see some of my other favorite bloggers/entrepreneurs/visionaries talk.

Listen, at the end of the day, it will be a competitive advantage to listen to and learn from diverse perspectives. So while you can be angry at the conference lineup, realize that the attendees are really the ones that missed out. My ticket bought me the thoughts and ideas of a narrow group of perspectives, and I would have loved to hear Mena, or Danah, or Caterina talk. If there is a venue and an opportunity for me to see them, I'll be there (please come to NY!).

If Carson's next conference is still a bunch-o-white men, then be outraged. And I'll be right there with ya...

The point is not the "next" conference. You could recurse this argument forever, and that's more or less how Silicon Valley has been going about it's business. The point is to fix it now, not "next" time.

(Cinnamon [my partner] also posted about this in her blog, but forgot to link to it here.)

Thanks for your insight, Nick. You've added something to the conversation where I couldn't. :P

Nevertheless, bullheaded as I am, I'll continue not solving the problem by pointing out some new facts: the AJAX Experience is Oct 23-25, more than a month away. They put out an *open* call for speakers. In the current tally of 47 or so speakers, 5 are non-white or non-male. I've contact the conference organizers and they've pointed to their application process as being "equal access and open".

Carson Systems put on show that happened to have all white, all male speakers and they got taken to the mat for it. In fairness, their organization is primarily made up of women and they did reach out to a small number of women to speak at FoWA; but that's also the past and they learned from it and no matter how much we or they would like to go back in time and make things right, they can't and we can't.

King of VOX et al, if this is something that should be fixed and/or continually worked on, what actions are you taking about the AJAX Experience or other events where an open registration process has resulted in yet another white-male speaker line up? What actions are you willing to take for other events that are closed and have underrepresented the non-white or non-male constituencies?

You can continue to lump the abuse on Carson if you like -- that's your prerogative -- but there seems to be plenty of opportunity out in the wild to make change in events that haven't happened yet. I'm no one special in this discussion, as it's been going on for ages -- but inasmuch as people seem to care about it and want change, perhaps there's a chance that we could start leading or demonstrating by example, even if we're not event organizers?

I'll chime in as part of the et al Chris refers to above (insert joke about being sidelined!) as a woman working in technology and participating in some of the conference circuit stuff.

As I mentioned above, in our small sample set for the Sketching conference, we had challenges getting women to the table. And part of that challenge (and, I think other organizers face this as well) was directly because the people we asked for recommendations of who to invite had not necessarily seen prominent women speakers at other conferences, had not schmoozed and networked and drank with them, let alone actually heard what they had to say about technology. This, of course, is the classic affirmative action argument - an open door is not enough. You actually have to bring people into the door. And an open door that isn't well-publicized beyond an already skewed audience isn't an open door at all.

There are smart-as-fuck women working in all areas of technology. Some of them/us have their heads down doing their work precisely because they're competing in non-traditional roles where they are being second-guessed. Some of them/us are in less-public roles or have less discretionary budget for travel to conferences. Some of them/us are tired of being the token woman and having to speak for all women when they/we just want to talk about technology trends. Some of them/us join committees and conference planning advisory boards and try to change things.

So what would I like to see?

1) Openness about the process by which conference organizers choose speakers: discussions of where calls for papers are posted, how invitations are sent, how nominations are made, etc.
2) Affirmative action: it matters to women attendees that there are women speakers. It matters, as we've seen here, to male attendees that there are women speakers. Get some women speakers.
3) More discussions like this where people acknowledge that it is in fact a problem and that there are in fact solutions.

Mary Hodder set up a Speakers List wiki last year. Lots of women and men on that list. Go look.

The National Academy of Scienced just issued a report on gender bias in science and engineering.

It will be discussed on the PBS Newshour today (Tues, sept 19). Audio, video, and a transcript should be online
by this evening.