Defrag Blog

I just noticed the the O’Reilly folks are taking some heat via a petition around not having enough women on the agenda for the Web 2.0 Summit, and I wanted to make a quick comment.

The “lack of female participation” on tech conference agendas is something I’ve been thinking about/working on/troubled by for a while now. Which is to say that I don’t think any of “us” (as conference organizers) are succeeding as we could on this - yet.

So, let me address this directly. Here are the women currently on the agenda (which is incomplete) for Defrag:

Laura Fitton
Andrea Baker
Chris Shipley
Lili Cheng
Maggie Fox
Deborah Schultz

It should be said that in NO WAY do I mean to imply that these folks are somehow less “experts” or qualified to present at Defrag, and were chosen simply because they were women. Quite the contrary - I think they’re all brilliant and love hearing their perspectives (gender has nothing to do with it).

It should also be said that I am sensitive of the “balancing the agenda” problem, as I too find it disturbing when you pull up a conference website and all that you see are white, male faces.

I would also note that I’ve invited a whole host of other women to present that can’t make it for one reason or another (folks like Esther Dyson, Ann Winblad, Elizabeth Churchill, etc).

Bottom-line: I’m more than aware of the issue. To the point that I’ve asked some women in the tech industry to “put the word out” as well. And now I’m coming to you - suggestions? Please send them my way (enorlin AT mac.com). If someone’s a great fit for the agenda, I’d love to include them.

I know this is a “sensitive issue,” and I wanted to just get it out in public that over at Defrag, I’m “working on it” (though I’m not sure I know exactly what that means), and probably the best way to work on it is to ask for help from all of you. Thanks.